


Children of the Empire

by Umi_no_arawashi



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: BDSM Undertones, Bisexual Paz Viszla, Calling an enemy “sweetheart” ironically always leads to trouble, Come for the space adventure stay for the porn, Daddy!Paz, Enemies to Lovers, General space mayhem, M/M, Not all imperials are assholes, Nudity, Oral Sex, Paz also somehow acquires a Zabrak sidekick along the way, Paz gets very lucky while tied to a chair, Paz is very against rape, Paz talks dirty while tied to a chair, Paz was married sometime in the past (to two people at the same time), Praise Kink, Sexy nerdy spaceship engineering, Stormtroopers deserve to be better taken care of, Strong disagreement with the Tarkin doctrine, Strong disagreement with the way the imperial Navy is run in general, Stupid sexy imperial navy with its stupid sexy ships and its stupid sexy uniforms, Threat of rape but no actual rape, To be fair most imperials are assholes, Top Paz, Warning - giant evil space creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:48:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28501023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umi_no_arawashi/pseuds/Umi_no_arawashi
Summary: Sometime after Season 1, Paz Viszla, searching for beskar steel in order to rebuild what’s left of his Covert, runs into a particularly annoying imperial officer with an unfortunate habit of dropping heavy things on his head and a distractingly pretty face.The problem is the officer also has a serious need for beskar, as well as a ship full of children rescued from an imperial academy...
Relationships: Paz Vizsla/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23





	1. The imp

**Author's Note:**

> So, you know how Paz famously hates imperials? Well, I decided to write him an imperial boyfriend. Please don’t ask me why.

The planet is yet another desertic hunk of rock. It’s one of the great ironies of the universe that, despite the vast number of habitable systems sentient beings have managed to settle in this almost endless galaxy, most of them seem to be made according to the same mold. Rocks, sand, barely enough water to sustain a small number of nasty little crawling things and a few pathetic looking trees. The presence of sentients helps a bit, technology managing to extract whatever unused particle of water the planet hid beneath its surface or along its poles, but still, in Paz’s opinions, most planets are like this one. Dusty little shitholes, with a few ragged looking settlements, and a great deal of nothing in between. 

This one, at the very least, has the advantage of not being too sandy. Its surface seems to be made mostly of flat, hard, red dirt, with tall, ragged brownish rocks standing randomly about as though someone scattered them from a bag like a child throwing toys. 

It’s hardly welcoming, but then again, Paz didn’t come here for the ambiance. He’s on a mission for the covert, although he’s no beroya like Din. He’s good in a fight, yet, but he’d be the first to admit he lacks a lot of the finesse needed for bounty hunting. He’s not exactly known for his negotiation skills, or his patience, and from what he gathers from his brother, a lot of the job involves negotiation and patience. 

His mission, hopefully, will require none of these things. Paz is after beskar for the foundlings. Now that the covert has been forced to split and their resources have been dispersed amongst the smallest groups, this is more crucial than ever. They can’t afford to lose anyone, and that means good, strong beskar’gam for as many of them as possible. He’s learned there might be a source on this miserable little planet. Probably some long-gone brother or sister’s armour, melted down into ingots by some enterprising soul. They would want the steel to go back to their people, naturally, so doing this will honour their memory as well. 

The whole thing should be simple enough. Talk to a few of the inhabitants to ascertain the beskar’s location, find it, acquire it. Paz does have a few credits in case it’s possible to strike a bargain with whoever thinks they own the steel, but nothing like its true value, of course. Buying will only work if the steel’s current owner has no idea of how much it’s actually worth. Otherwise Paz will have to get his hands on it the old-fashioned way, with a few well-placed blaster shots. He doesn’t really mind that possibility. It’ll be cheaper for the covert, and possibly quicker. 

He lands his ship next to what seems to be the largest settlement. The ship is nothing to write home about - a modified light cargo whose only redeeming quality is its age: the Acanth is old enough that it doesn’t carry any of the imperial-mandated transponders, powerful enough to accommodate a rudimentary shield system and a few cannons just in case. Plus, it’s ugly enough that no one in their right mind would take a second look at it if they could possibly help it. 

On this particular dust-ball of a planet, it fits perfectly. It might actually be one of the better ships in what passes for a space-port here, which is basically a large flat field with a handful of ships placed in a vague semi-circle with a few refuelling droids sitting idle. The Acanth might predate the Empire, but some of the ships there look like they predate the Republic itself, to be honest. The old one, of course, not the new one that’s sprung up in Core since the fall of the Empire.

Paz parks the ship in an empty spot and throws a few credits to a waiting humanoid whose demeanour and outfit - a grease-stained leather apron and heavy-duty gloves - somehow scream mech, even though its shape, something between a lizard and a rat, only about half as tall as Paz himself, is unfamiliar. 

“Fill her up,” he says curtly. 

The little creature squeaks in assentiment. At least it seems to understand Basic, which is appreciable. Or perhaps the gesture is universal enough that it doesn’t even need to understand the actual words.

Slowly, keeping an eye open for the ever-present possibility of trouble, Paz makes his way through the settlement, trying to find what passes from a tavern or watering hole in this place. Those are always the best source of information. 

The town looks even worse from the ground than it did from the air, with squat, ugly buildings built for function rather than form. There’s a wall around the town itself, Paz notes, as though there might be something in the wilderness that requires defending from. The inhabitants, however, look harmless. None of them seem to carry weapons, and they look at him with the worried look of peaceful creatures suddenly confronted with the sight of a warrior in full armour. In fact, most of them take one look at him and scurry back into their little houses. Paz supposes the heavy blaster rifle strapped to his back doesn’t really help. He’s left the cannon on the ship, though. It’s not exactly designed for one-man missions.

At any rate, whatever the mechanic was, its race seems to be the most numerous one in the town. For all Paz know, they might be indigenous to the planet. He’s certainly never encountered any of them before. The rest of the population, to Paz’s relief, seems to be made out of standard-issue humans. That’ll make finding information easier. He’s not entirely sure the little lizard-rats are capable of making any sound he can understand. They seem to communicate entirely through those high-pitched squeaks. The humans, though, seem to be talking back at them in a vaguely accented but entirely recognisable version of Basic, which is reassuring. Paz is not exactly a great linguist. Mando’a and Basic make out the entire panel of languages at his disposal, which before this has never been much of a problem. Once again, he’s not a beroya, he’s a defender. People like Din, quick, clever people who can pick up enough of a language to communicate in a few days, are the ones that are supposed to go out of the covert and deal with all this shit, while people like Paz take care of any threats to their home.

But these days, there’s not much choice. Their resources are stretched paper-thin.

The tavern, when he finds it, looks just as miserable as anything on this planet. Tiny, low-ceilinged, and not exactly clean. Then again, Paz is ill-placed to judge, given that he’s been living in sewers for the past few years. More important than the ambiance of the place is the fact that it is populated with your usual band of derelicts, the type that are already on their third or fifth drink even though the afternoon has barely started. Those people usually have nothing better to do than watch and discuss what everyone else is up to, and that makes them excellent sources of information. 

He walks in, and there’s a sudden hush. That often happens when a stranger walks in a place like this, of course, but especially when they look like Paz. The half-dozen clients, human and lizard-rat alike, look at him appraisingly, taking on his armour, his helmet, his size, his weapons. There is a palpable tension in the air. 

The bartender, a middle-age female human, clears her throat. 

“So, what’ll you drink, stranger?” she asks.

“Whatever’s good around here,” says Paz, settling down at the bar. One by one, the other clients seem to decide it’s better for their health to be looking at something else rather than Paz and they look away, resuming their interrupted conversation.

The bartender turns to fiddle with her bottles. “I’m looking for something,” says Paz. “I’m willing to pay for information, if you have any.”

Her hands pause for a second. “I don’t think you’ll like what I have to tell you,” she says without turning around.

“I haven’t asked anything yet. “

She puts down a drink of something green and pungent in front of Paz. He takes a sip, barely lifting his helmet. It’s strong, and the vaguely acerbic taste reminds him of some cactus-like plants he’s eaten before.

“I have a feeling I know what you’re going to ask,” she says. “You’re a Mandalorian, right? I’ve heard of you people. This armour you’re wearing… it’s beskar, isn’t it?”

Paz nods and says nothing. 

“That’s what you’re after, aren’t you? More of that?” She leans over the counter. Paz nods again, and she smiles apologetically. “Sorry, Mandalorian. I’m afraid you’re too late.”

“What do you mean?” Paz asks, cocking his head to the side.

“Someone else’s after that steel. You only just missed them, actually. They were…” Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “Imperials. Well, ex-imperial, one should say, I suppose,” she adds, correcting herself.

“Imperials?” says Paz, a little surprised. He didn’t expect to run into imps on such a god-forsaken place. Then again, like ants, imps are everywhere, even now. The thought of the imperial troops on Navarro forcing his covert to leave flashes through his mind. “Did they say who they were working for?”

“No. But we’ve heard there were lots of different groups. Warlords and such. Is it true?”

“As far as I know,” says Paz curtly. “How many imps?”

“Not a lot. An officer type, four stormtroopers. But the stormtroopers were not the usual kind.”

“Were they wearing black?” asks Paz, grimacing a little to himself. Death troopers would be especially bad news, even though four of them ought to be manageable. 

“No.” She shakes her head. “Silver. She looks like she’s thinking for a second, then makes up her mind. “Listen. He paid me to stay silent, but honestly, imperials can go fuck themselves. I’ll tell you where they’ve gone.”

* * *

The steel, it turns out, is in another settlement not far to the south, a town that’s been abandoned to the desert after a particularly bad earthquake. The region, apparently, is known for them. Those, and a type of creatures that sound like they need to be avoided at all costs. The bartender referred to them as “stingers”, gave very little detail about them beyond the fact some of them are, apparently, big enough to eat a ship whole, and although they only come out at night and tend to avoid settlements, they’re attracted to mechanical vibrations, which means it’s unwise to travel by ship - or by jet pack, for that matter. The locals use a sort of sled-like contraption that hovers a few feet over the ground and is pulled by a solar sail that looks a little like a kite, and the bartender directed Paz to one of the lizard-rat (the humans call the species Skitchlings, since no one can pronounce what they call themselves) who was willing to rent him one.

The sled is fairly easy to control, and remarkably quiet as it glides above the hard ground. According to the Skitchling, who, it turned out, did speak Basic, even though he sounded a little like a squeaky toy doing it, the imps also took one. Paz is only a few hours behind, and the beskar is not easy to locate. Some locals have tried, even though they don’t really have a use for it in these parts, but it’s somewhere under the rubble and they couldn’t find it. The bartender’s not sure how it ended up in that town to begin with, only that it apparently was some kind of heirloom to some long-gone family.

The ride takes a few hours, and the sun is starting to fall when he catches sight of the ruins on the horizon. Cautiously, he approaches, keeping himself out of sight behind one of the massive spire-like rocks that jut out of the ground. He leaves the sled there, hidden in the shade of that rock, and walks carefully towards the ruins of the town. 

Everything is rubble and dust. The town has been so comprehensively destroyed that it’s hard to make out where the houses once were. There are only a few walls standing, looking like teeth in an old man’s mouth. Everything is deathly quiet. There’s just the sound of the wind, whistling through the rocks. Paz walks slowly, holding his rifle, ready to fire. It’s quiet, but something tells him he’s not alone.

Then, as though to prove his point, there’s a sudden flash of movement, sunlight reflected against something shiny, and Paz fires. He’s not about to let imperials get the drop on him. But then his fire is returned, from four directions at a time, and that is highly unusual for stormtroopers. As a rule, they tend to huddle together. It seems to be the only tactic they know: strength in numbers. They’re not the sniper type. 

These ones, however, have decided to be extra-annoying, and Paz is forced to shelter behind one of the walls and return fire. He’s sorely tempted to use his jet pack, which would simplify matters immensely, but the nice bartender-lady definitely recommended against that. It attracts the monsters. Not to mention that it would make him a particularly conspicuous target, but at least he’d see what he was shooting at. For a second, he wishes he did have his modified Z-6 cannon with him. Blasting through the walls would be a big help right now. 

There’s a particularly long exchange of blaster shots, then silence. Paz uses his scope to locate the troopers, and they’re converging towards the center of the town, where there’s a building that’s much larger than the others and seems to have fared a lot better in the earthquake. It’s still standing, at any rate. 

Suddenly, he spots one of the silver troopers, running in the open, and he has a clear shot. He takes it, and the trooper crumbles to the ground, hit in the back. But he keeps moving, crawling, which is pretty unusual. Stormtroopers usually take one good shot and they’re done, their pathetic excuse for an armour not up to resisting a blaster shot, and certainly not heavy rifle ordinance like what Paz is shooting. This one, however, doesn’t seem to want to give up, and he crawls into the large building Paz noticed earlier.

It’s quiet again. The other troopers are hidden. Paz waits for a while, then decides to move into the building where the wounded trooper has disappeared. Those troopers appear to be slippery bastards, and this one might be his best bet. 

Still, entering any kind of building in these situations is dangerous. It might, of course, be a trap. Then again, four miserable stormtroopers are very unlikely to be able to lay any kind of trap that would pose any problem to someone like him. 

He enters, his footsteps heavy in the silence. It’s a large, round hall, empty and cavernous, with a row of large stone pillars around it. They’re still standing, and as a result most of the upper structure is still there, a high, domed ceiling with a few large cracks in it, a large balcony running around the wall, mostly ruined.

The trooper isn’t hard to find. There’s a trail of blood on the sandy stone floor, and Paz follows it cautiously. He spots the heat signature of the trooper through his scope long before he can see it. The trooper is on the floor, breathing heavily, thirty feet away from him. He’s leaning against a heavy piece of rubble and he’s still clutching his blaster. He doesn’t look like he can get up. 

Paz looks at him, squinting through the half-light. His helmet display is good at a lot of things, but not at displaying colour. The trooper’s armour is dusty, but it is a dull, darkish silver. From here, it almost looks like… 

But it couldn’t be. Who in their right mind would use beskar steel for stormtrooper armour?

The imp struggles in a vain effort to get up. Paz moves closer, kicks his rifle away from him, keeping his blaster firmly aimed at him. He moves back a little so he has a better view of the surroundings, just in case this is some sort of trap.

“You’re out of luck, imp,” he says. At this range, he can easily fire into the unprotected black suit that peeks out from under that strange armour. “Now tell me. Where’s the beskar? You have five seconds, then I’ll start shooting.”

“Hold,” says a voice, and somehow that single world manages to put through all the annoying sense of superiority an Inner worlds accent can convey. 

Paz looks up. An imperial is standing on top of one of the slabs of walls, just above him. He doesn’t appear to be holding any kind of weapon. It’s the officer, according to the dark-grey uniform he’s wearing. A naval captain, if Paz is reading his insignia plaque, although he’s wearing three yellow squares above the usual blue and red, which might mean he’s something else. Paz is no expert.

“I can easily shoot you down from here, you know,” says Paz mildly. It does seem to be a very stupid place to stand. 

“I wouldn’t advise that,” says the imperial, his voice perfectly calm, as though he was merely making polite conversation. He holds out his hand, and Paz sees he’s holding some sort of small cylindrical detonator. “You see, this entire building is rigged with explosives. One false move, and I’ll bring it down on all our heads.”

Paz looks around, and in the half-darkness of the vast hall-like space, the blinking red lights of the blast charges are so visible he wonders how he didn’t notice them before. There seems to be one one on every second pillar that ring the place.

Still, Paz shrugs. “Do it. I’ll survive. You won’t.”

The imperial has no armour on. It’s hard to make out his face, framed as it is against the light pouring out of the broken ceiling, but his sandy blonde hair that catches the light like a pale halo makes him look very vulnerable in this rough environment. Paz could take this whole place crumbling down around them, the stormtrooper might survive, especially if that armour is what Paz thinks it is, but the officer would be crushed to a pulp. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you,” says the imp. “Look above you.”

Paz glances up quickly, keeping his rifle trained on the fallen trooper. The imp has a point. Paz seems to be standing right under some sort of massive durasteel beam, which at some point might have been part of the balcony-like second floor of the building. It looks like it could crush a tank.

“I’m not here for you, imp. I’ll leave if you hand me the beskar,” says Paz.

“The beskar’s gone,” says the imp with finality. “You’re not getting your hands on it, Mandalorian. Now. I’d my trooper back, if you please.”

“If you give me the steel,” says Paz, trying as hard as he can to hold on to his temper. The man’s tone is so annoyingly superior, and it would be easy, so easy, just to shoot the man in the throat and take his chances with the durasteel beam. 

“Is there some sort of problem with your hearing, Mandalorian?” says the imp with a tilt of the head. From here, it’s difficult to make out his expression, but it almost sounds like he’s making fun of him. “The - beskar - is - gone.” Every word is enunciated insultingly precisely, as though the imp thought he was a bit dim. “My men are taking it back to my ship as we speak. Now, you have a very simple choice, here. Either you let my trooper go, or we all die.”

“I don’t believe you,” says Paz. “Don’t try to tell me you’re here for a mere stormtrooper. That’s not how you imps work.” The man is a captain, for fuck’s sake. Paz has never heard of any imperial commander willing to negotiate for the life of an entire squadron of stormtroopers, let alone one lonely wounded one. 

The stormtrooper, however, seems to be taking it at face value, given how he’s crawling, slowly, towards the officer. Paz lets him. The trooper is inconsequential. He’s disarmed, and if anyone here is any danger to Paz, it’s the officer. Not that he looks that dangerous, really, from here.

“Have you considered the possibility that perhaps I’m just here for his armour?” the imp says mildly. 

It’s a cheap trick, yet somehow it works, and Paz finds his eyes drawn to that strange armour, once again thinking that it can’t possibly be what he thinks it is, and that second of distraction is enough. Suddenly, there’s an explosion, and Paz realises that although the entire place might be wired to explode, the imp actually somehow has a way to control which explosives blow up, because it’s only the pillar right behind him that crumbles, and suddenly there’s a loud cracking noise and the concrete plate above the metal beam starts slipping down, straight to Paz’s position, and he barely has the time to roll away to avoid the rubble. Most of it falls to the side, but a fair amount lands on him, and it’s heavy and loud and it fucking hurts, and then something large and metallic hits him in the back of the helmet and he blacks out for a little while.

* * *

When he wakes up, cursing every single imperial ever made, he’s under at least ten feet of rubble, and every time he tries to dig himself out, something heavy seems to decide to fall on his head again just for the hell of it, making him see stars. He probably is going to get some sort of concussion from all this, heavy armour or no heavy armour. After a lot of slow, patient work, he manages to heave himself out of the debris.

Around him, everything is dust and crumbling rock. Paz swears, and clambers to his feet. The room is empty. The light coming in from the - now massive - hole in the ceiling is distinctly red-tinged, as though the sun was setting.

The officer is gone. 

The trooper is gone, unless he’s buried under the rubble somewhere, but Paz doesn’t even have the slightest idea where he would start looking.

And of kriffing course, the beskar, if it even was there to begin with, is nowhere to be found.


	2. The camp

It doesn’t take long for Paz to decide on his next course of action. The beskar’s on its way to ship, according to the imp, and although he’s not about to take the officer’s word for it, he still has to consider the possibility he was telling the truth. If the beskar is truly on the sled with the rest of the stormtroopers. Paz has no chance of catching up with it, given the fact they have a head start and both sleds are probably just as fast. 

On the other hand, the Skitchling said the imperials only rented one sled. That means that if the imp did send away the sled with the steel on it, then he’s probably trying to rendezvous with his troops on foot. And that would make him very easy to track indeed. Besides, with imperials, it’s always better to go for the officer. They usually give up a lot easier than the troopers, in Paz’s experience, especially when they can’t hide behind lines and lines of stormtroopers. And all this one has is one injured soldier, so he’ll be easy to subdue.

And given how the empire operates, how ridiculously hierarchical their army is, one thing is certain: the rest of them will come for their commander, no matter how little it makes sense from a strategic point of view. It makes Paz’s job extremely easy. All he has to do is catch up to the officer and hold on to him. The others (and hopefully the beskar) will come to him. If they don’t, he’ll just have to make the imp give him the location of the steel, which should also be easy.

Tracking the imperial is not the problem. The hard, dusty ground is not ideal for footprints, but Paz is skilled enough to be able to follow a trail, especially since the officer seems to be dragging the trooper along, if he’s reading the marks on the ground correctly.

The problem is that Paz is not the first to find him. 

The tracks lead to a kind of reddish cliffs, and there are clear signs of struggle, blaster marks on the rocks, dark stains on the ground where someone has bled. Paz curses under his breath. If someone has killed his imperial, it’ll make getting the steel harder. 

He pauses for a second to look around. In the light of the setting sun, the scenery is not easy to parse, but if travelling at night is as dangerous as he’s been told, chances are they are not very far. And although there’s no sign of a settlement out in the open, there’s a darkish shadow on the cliff wall about half a click to the east that looks very much like it could be a large cave, with shadows that could possibly be sleds very much like the one he’s currently driving.

Gritting his teeth, Paz sets his course for the cave, hoping the imp is still alive and whoever’s got it is friendly.

* * *

The people who captured the imps turn out to be, at least at first sight, extremely friendly. It’s a small group of scavengers, humans, mostly, with a few Rodians and a Zabrak thrown in. Their camp is an assortment of wide tents that lead into each other, heavy canvas supported by a network of ropes and tall wooden pillars. The tents have been set up inside the mouth of the cave, which actually turns out to be more like a narrow canyon, a crack in the rock face that offers more shelter than the flat, hard ground outside. According to the Zabrak, who’s named Ensu, it’s also a lot less vulnerable to the stingers, and he, like the bartender back at the town, seems to think this is an essential quality.

That Zabrak is also the one who came out to greet him, with a grin made slightly disconcerting by the sharp point of his teeth. Apparently, they’d seen him coming, and were busy making bets on whether the armour he was wearing was indeed mandalorian. He’s delighted to learn that it was, and claps Paz heartily on the shoulder. 

“You out hunting, Mandalorian?” he asks.

Paz tilts his head noncommittally. The Zabrak grins again.

“I hope you weren’t after the imps, ‘cause they’re ours, now. The officer has a nice little bounty on his head. Hell, even stormtroopers’ll fetch a pretty price these days. The New Republic’s got a standing bounty on them, you know.”

Paz raises his eyebrows dismissively under his helmet. Of course he knows. Still, if these scavengers have his imperial, he better play nice.

“I’m not after the bounty,” he says, curtly. “I just need a word with the officer. Then I’m gone.”

The Zabrak looks at him with a doubtful look. “Gone where? It’s gonna be night, Mandalorian. This is not a good place to travel at night.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Paz shrugs.

“You’ll die. There are some bad things in the wastelands. Big, bad things that you don’t want around. But.... If you want, you can stay here tonight with us. Talk with your imperial tomorrow.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because…” The Zabrak grins again. “It’s not that often we get the chance to see a real mandalorian. Stay. Drink with us. It’ll make a nice story to tell the kids one day, if I ever have kids.”

* * *

Paz is wary at first. He doesn’t really like to associate with outsiders, and although he’s certainly not the last one to raise his glass when partying with others of his creed, he barely touches the strong alcohol they serve him, the same acerbic stuff he had in the bar. There’s about ten of them, sitting around a fire in the largest tent. The imps are tied up somewhere in one of the smaller tents, he guesses. 

Everyone looks at him curiously as he tilts his head back to take a small sip of his drink, and there’s a rapid exchange of whispers between some of the men. Paz can guess what they’re saying. It’s always the same shit, with these people. 

_So it’s true, then? About the helmets?  
You think he ever takes it off?  
What do you think he looks like, under that?_

It’s tiresome, and one of the many reasons he hates spending time with people who are not of the Creed. Their curiosity is annoying. 

But apart from that, the small group is friendly. Well, reasonably friendly. There seems to be a fair amount of internal tension. The Zabrak, who seems to act as some sort of leader, stays mostly silent, while the others ask questions about Paz’s armour, about Mandalorians. He answers some of them. After all, they’re offering him shelter for the night. It’s only fair they get a few stories in payment. 

He asks about the imps, but the Zabrak merely grins again. “Tomorrow,” he says. “Let’s relax a bit for tonight.” 

They offer to share their food, some large chunks of unidentifiable meat they roast directly on the fire after skewering them on small sticks. Paz declines. It’s not the kind of food that he can eat with a helmet on, and besides, there’s a vague greenish gleam to the meat that’s really not very appetizing. They look vaguely disappointed, but soon get over it. The drink helps. By the time the meat is gone, they’ve emptied several large pouches of the stuff, and have moved on to singing drunkenly. One of the two Rodians is passed out on the floor. 

Paz just sits, watching the fire throwing off small sparks, willing the night to pass. He tries to think about how best to go about this. He needs to know where the steel is gone, and it’s unlikely the imperials will tell him willingly. Perhaps if he promises to help them escape from the scavengers?

But no. He thinks back on that officer, his sharp, mocking tone. He did not sound like the type who’d readily negotiate. Perhaps he’ll need to apply a little force. He’s not exactly fond of torture, but then again, this is an imperial officer they’re talking about. Barely counts as human. That, and there is a sizable amount of beskar at stake, enough for several foundling to get their first helmets, and that is more than enough motivation.

Something catches his attention and Paz looks up. A couple of the scavengers are getting up and heading off into one of the back tents, snickering, red with drink, ugly grins plastered on their faces. They elbow each other as they stagger, as though sharing a joke, or urging each other to do something. 

Paz gestures with his head. “What are they up to?” he asks the Zabrak, who’s leaning back on his elbows with a contented look on his face after putting away a surprising amount of meat considering his lean frame.

“Oh, they just want a bit of fun. You know. With that officer.” He glances at Paz from the corner of his eye. “The pretty one.”

“What do they want with him?” asks Paz, not catching on.

“Well…” The Zabrak raises an eyebrow. “The usual, I guess. Don’t worry, they won’t hurt him too badly. You’ll be able to speak to him tomorrow. It’s not my thing, but… there’s no harm in it, I guess.”

Paz frowns to himself. It’s strange, considering he was thinking about using force to make that officer talk not a few minutes before, but there’s something about it that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. 

The Zabrak takes his silence for disapprobation. “Not your thing either?” he asks. “What, do you guys not fuck?”

“Oh, we fuck,” says Paz baldly. “We just don’t rape.”

The Zabrak laughs, and the sound is vaguely grating to Paz’s ears. “Then you’re unlike most humans I know.” 

“Maybe the humans you know are assholes.”

“That, they are.” The Zabrak looks up at Paz appraisingly. “You look bothered. Well, you kind of, I don’t know, _feel_ bothered. It’s not like I can read your expression or anything.”

Paz gets up in one fluid motion. “Do you mind if I go see what’s happening?” he asks, mostly hypothetically. He’s already made up his mind.

“Nah. Join them, stop them, it’s all the same to me. Just don’t hurt that imperial, he’s my ticket out of this shithole. The others I don’t give a shit about, honestly.”

“They’re your crew.” 

“They’re a bunch of out-of-luck idiots who got themselves stuck here, same as me, that’s all. And if the worst comes to the worst, you get rid of one or two of them, my cut gets bigger.” The Zabrak’s pointed teeth glint in the red light of the fire. “So like I said. It’s all the same to me.”

* * *

They just took the officer. The trooper is still tied to a pillar in one of the side tents. He looks shockingly young in his tight black undersuit, and scared, even though he’s trying to look tough in front of Paz. There’s not a lot of light, just one small lamp that flickers erratically, and this far from the fire, it’s surprisingly cold. 

“Where’s your friend?” asks Paz. 

The trooper snarls. There’s some kind of improvised bandage wrapped around his midriff. “Fuck you. I’m not telling you shit,” he spits. His voice is high and clear. 

Paz tilts his head and studies the man. The kid, really. He looks as though he’s barely out of his teens. “Why not?” he asks. “I’m not your enemy, kid. It’s not you I want.”

The kid glares at him, his dark eyes furious. “You shot me,” he says accusingly. Despite himself, Paz finds it a little endearing. It’s hard not to think about the foundlings he’s trained, looking at that earnest, homely face, still pocked with the red spots of adolescence. 

“Well, to be fair, you shot at me first, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” The kid’s eyes turn fierce. “And the captain dropped a wall on you. How’s your head?” he adds with a smirk.

“I don’t know, kid. Probably better than your back. The captain, that’s your officer, right? Do you know where he is?”

The kid scoffs. “They came and took him. They probably want to ask him something. Joke’s on them, though. The captain will _never_ crack. He’s cleverer than all of them, anyway.”

“Yeah? Sorry to break it to you, kid, but I don’t think they wanted to _talk_ , exactly.” The kid blanches a little at that, and Paz decides to push further. “I don’t think it’ll matter how clever he is, either. They seemed a lot more interested in his pretty face and what’s between his legs, if you know what I mean.”

The kid blinks. “What?” he asks, incredulous. 

“Yeah. Guess you’re lucky their tastes don’t run to kids, aren’t you?”

The kid’s face falls. “You mean they…” His voice runs out mid-sentence. He looks utterly horrified.

“Yeah. Tell me where they went, though, and I’ll stop them.”

The kid looks up at him. Paz can see him trying to be tough, trying to look like a soldier, and failing miserably at it. There’s a little heartbreaking tremble in his chin, and a glint in his eyes, as though he’s holding tears back.

Just a kid, he thinks. Just a kid. Fuck the empire for putting him in this position. Fuck that officer for putting him on the battlefield. 

Then again, Paz has put guns in the hands of kids not much older than that as well. But he didn’t have any choice. 

“Why?” says the kid. “Why would you…”

“Don’t get things wrong,” says Paz. “I don’t give a shit about your officer. Imps can burn in hell, as far as I’m concerned. I need something out of him.”

There’s also the fact that the very idea of rape make him want to kill someone, but that, he doesn’t have to tell the kid. It’s his own business. 

Llyan’s face flashes in his mind. Llyan when they first found her, battered and broken, her little dress stained with red blood. 

Llyan as she grew to become, a fierce, fearless warrior, her armour gleaming like gold in the light of their blasters, and Yrlic by her side, laughing into his helmet, the way he always did, as though fighting was the greatest joke ever.

His wife. His husband. The grief is as fresh as ever, and it surprises him, the way it does every time, how raw that feeling still is, despite all the years. How unstoppable. 

The kid says something and Paz blinks, chasing away a stray tear. It’s been a while since he blanked out like that. “What?” he asks, his voice raw, although you probably can’t tell, with the helmet. 

“I said they took him further back,” the kid repeats. “Over there.” He points at one of the tent openings. The whole thing is a maze, tents leading into tents, but at least now he has a direction. 

The kid looks up at Paz again. “Please. I’m sorry I shot at you. You have to help the captain. He… He’s a good man. He’s all we have. He doesn’t deserve this.”

Privately, Paz doubts that, imperials being what they are, but there’s no point telling the kid that. He just nods, once, and leaves.

* * *

This far back, the tents are small and filled with personal items and bedrolls. It’s probably the group’s sleeping quarters. The tents can probably be used individually, but Paz can see how it would make sense, in a place like this, to keep them all huddled together. At least it keeps some of the warmth in. He passes one, two, three small tents before he finds them. 

It’s two humans, of course. The Zabrak was right, humans do seem to have a propensity towards rape that other species rarely show. They’re standing, their faces ugly with hatred and lust. 

The officer is on the ground, his hands bound behind his back. He’s been stripped naked. Paz can see his pale, smooth skin trembling in the cold, yet he doesn’t seem cowed in the slightest. He’s staring at his aggressors, his eyes filled with fierce determination. 

There’s one of those small flickering lights in that room as well, and so for the first time, Paz can take a good look at the officer’s face

His lip is split, and there’s a large bruise forming on one of his high cheekbones, but he seems fine, so far. Furious, bruised, but fine. And seeing how the two assholes are still dressed, it looks like they haven’t started yet. 

There’s something else, though, that Paz can’t help noticing. 

The officer isn’t pretty. He’s _stunning_.

He looks like he’s not much more than thirty, perhaps, not a youth anymore, but as yet untouched by age. His face is all smooth, angular planes, a high pure forehead above straight brows, sharp cheekbones, a straight, aristocratic nose. Strong features, yet delicate somehow, like an old statue. The mouth is the only soft thing about that face, with lips that somehow look a little too full, a little too feminine. 

His eyes are a pale, greyish blue. 

Yeah, overall, Paz wouldn’t call him _pretty_. This is the kind of beauty people have started wars over.

The officer’s eyes narrow as he sees him. “You?” he says. His voice is hoarse. There are red marks on his neck, bruises shaped like fingers.

The two other assholes finally realise Paz is here. Fucking idiots were completely oblivious otherwise. 

“What are you doing here, Mandalorian?” asks the biggest one. “You want a piece of him?”

“No,” says Paz, crossing his arms. 

“Don’t know, maybe he hasn’t got a cock under all that armour,” mutters the other one, giggling. It’s an ugly, grating sound.

“Maybe I don’t like sticking my cock where it’s not wanted,” says Paz levelly. “Maybe I’m not the kind of dick who fucks a tied-up prisoner.” Paz sees them stiffen at that, their eyes suddenly wary. “Now get out of here,” he says, gesturing towards the door. 

“What?” The bigger one takes a step towards Paz. “Hey, you may be a mandalorian and all that shit, but this one is ours. We caught him fair and square. We can do what we like.”

“Yeah, well, no. Not while I’m here.” He uncrosses his arms, lets them fall to his sides, close to his holsters. He can see the two men sizing him up. They don’t like what they see. Paz is large, and he knows the armour makes him look even larger. The two would-be rapists, on the other hand, have the scrawny, weaselly look of men who got where they are by bullying people who were smaller than them, not by taking risks. 

Still, the smaller one hasn’t entirely cottoned on yet. “You can’t do that. He’s ours, didn’t you…”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Paz moves in towards him and punches him in the gut, a sharp, upwards hit to the diaphragm. It’s barely a tap, and certainly not as hard as he deserves, but the man folds in half, wheezing.

“Fuck this,” says the bigger one. “It’s not worth it.” He turns to go, leaving the other man behind.

“Hey! Wait!” the smaller one wheezes, and he clambers after his friend, still bent in half, throwing a murderous look towards Paz as he passes him.

Paz can hear their grumbling grow more distant as they move away. They’re probably going back to the main tent, where the fire was, to complain about what happened. He doesn’t care very much. 

There’s only him and the officer in the room now. 

The officer’s still on his knees. His eyes haven’t left Paz. His arms are tied together behind his back, not with actual restraints, but with the same kind of rope that holds the tents up. He’s leaning forward a little, as though trying to keep some of his body hidden from view. 

It’s only partially successful. For a few seconds, Paz just stands there, surveying him. It’s not the kind of body he’s usually attracted to. Pale, lightly muscled, the spare, lean lines of a tactician, not a foot soldier. There’s not a single mark on him, not a single scar honorably acquired in combat, and Paz’s mouth twists a little in a scornful smirk. This is no fighter. 

Yet there’s a kind of strength there too, in those long, lean muscles coiled in tension, in those unwavering blue-grey eyes. And all that pale, pristine skin seems to invite touch - would it be as soft as it looks, Paz wonders? He lets his gaze wander down to the imp’s lean thighs, to the half-shadowed curve of his perfectly shaped arse. 

Yeah, he might disapprove of those two guys’ methods, but he can’t fault their taste.

“Hello,” he says, crossing his arms in front of him. “You look a lot nicer without your uniform on.”

The imp’s eyes narrow as he looks at Paz warily. “You survived, I see,” he says, his tone as clipped and haughty as if he were standing on the bridge of a star destroyer. “Pity.”

“I wouldn’t say that, if I were you, given I’ve just saved your ass,” says Paz. “Quite literally,” he adds after a slight pause, and the imp’s cheeks redden gratifyingly. 

“I sincerely doubt you came here to _help_ me,” says the officer. “What do you want from me?”

“Do you think that’s a question you should be asking while kneeling naked at a man’s feet?” says Paz. There’s something about the man’s tone that just makes him want to tease him. 

“Really?” The man raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “I should have guessed your earlier speech was just for show. You’re scum, just like them.”

There’s a carefully schooled expression on his face, something between cold amusement and disdain. It’s almost credible. But Paz is observant, and he didn’t miss the minute way the man’s shoulders contracted at his words, the slight hitch of breath. He’s scared. He’s badly scared, underneath it all, but he’s trying his best to hide it. It’s kind of cute, really.

“Don’t worry, princess, I’m not after your pretty ass,” says Paz. “You know what I want.”

The imperial grits his teeth. “The beskar? I don’t have it, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, you said. I’m thinking you can get it for me, though.”

“It’s not here. And as you can see, I find myself rather inconvenienced, at the moment.”

“You’re in deep shit, you mean.” Paz sits down casually on a crate. “So this is what I propose. A trade. I help you get out of this mess, you give me the beskar.”

“I…” The imp looks like he’s about to refuse, then stops to think. “Perhaps. But it can’t be just me. You would have to free my trooper as well, or I won’t do it.”

“What, that kid? If you care about his welfare, leave him. He might be better off with the New Republic. They have a whole rehabilitation program for stormtroopers, you know.”

“I am well aware of what the New Republic has in store for my men, Mandalorian,” says the imperial, his voice suddenly much sharper. “He leaves with me, or I won’t tell you anything.”

Paz shrugs. “Fine. It’ll be a pain in the ass, given the kid’s injuries, but if you insist.”

“I do,” says the imp, his eyes steely. He pauses. “When do you want to do this?”

“Well, I’ve heard from about ten different sources that it’s very dumb to travel at night on this planet. That would make, oh, right about _now_ the ideal time, don’t you think?”

The imperial raises an eyebrow again. “I can’t tell whether you’re completely reckless or simply unaware of the risks. You do know what’s out there, do you?”

“Some sort of beast. A thing they call stingers. Haven’t seen one myself, though.”

“They’re quite large,” says the imp. “And very deadly. Not to mention very well armoured.”

“Well,” says Paz, smiling to himself, “it sounds like we have a lot in common, me and those things. I’ll take my chances. Haven’t met a creature that could stop me yet.”

“Hmm,” says the imperial thoughtfully, and again, he sounds like he’s debating tactics in a war room, not kneeling naked on the ground in a half-lit tent. “The idea does have some merit. If there’s a chase, the creatures might be just as interested in our pursuers as in us. It could give us an edge.”

“Glad you approve, princess.”

“I would appreciate it, however, if you didn’t call me that,” the imp says curtly.

“Why not? It suits you. Pretty, in distress, needs rescuing, stuck up, kind of annoying. I haven’t met many princesses, but you sort of fit the bill.”

“My rank,” says the imp, “is captain. Address me as that, if you will.”

“Yeah, sweetheart, sorry, I don’t think I’ll be doing that.”

The imp sighs. “Fine. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Would you be so kind as to hand me my uniform?”

“Sure, sweetheart,” says Paz, and there’s a small, annoyed twitch at the corner of the imperial’s mouth that’s a lot of fun to watch. Apparently, he doesn’t seem to think ‘sweetheart’ is much of an improvement on ‘princess’.

This is definitely the most entertaining imperial officer Paz has ever met. It’s almost a shame he’ll have to put him down, in the end. If someone had ever told him he’d feel the slightest compunction at the thought of killing an imperial officer, Paz would never have believed it. But this is the Way. The only good imperials are dead ones.

Maybe not the kid, though, thinks Paz as he locates a pile of grey garments and pushes it with his foot towards the imp. The kid’s too young. It’s not his fault he ended up in this mess.

“My hands,” says the imp, interrupting Paz’s train of thought. 

“What?”

“I can’t exactly dress with my hands behind my back,” says the officer, sounding irritated. 

“Fine,” he says. “Hurry up.” He slides his blade quickly through the ropes and sits back onto the crate, taking his gun out just in case, and watches as the imp shakes out his uniform and puts it on, meticulously, as though dressing for a fucking parade. He doesn’t even bother to turn around. 

Just to spite him, Paz looks. The rest of him is just as pretty as what he’s already seen. He’s not tall, exactly, or at least not compared to Paz, but he’s long-limbed, all smooth lines, like a dancer. Between his legs, his cock looks incongruously pretty, pink and small, at least in its soft state, in a nest of sparse hair that’s a shade darker than the hair on his head. It makes him look disconcertingly human, and once again, Paz finds himself wondering if he’ll find it hard to kill him, in the end. 

That’s when he looks away, finally. He doesn’t want to think about that. He’s careful not to move his head, though. Let the imp think he’s looking at him through the helmet. Let him sweat.

“Are you done?” Pazasks, absent-mindedly drumming his fingers on the barrel of his gun. This is taking ages.

“Give me a second, please,” says the imp. He’s almost done, now, but he’s still fiddling with something on his wrist, adjusting a button on his fucking glove, of all things. 

“Come on. I haven’t got all day.”

“I said give me a second,” says the imp, looking up at him with that superior look on his face and with that, Paz snaps.

He steps forward, dropping his gun back in its holster to free his hands - unwisely, as it’ll turn out-, so he can grab that fucking imp by the arm to drag him out.

He reaches towards the imperial, and suddenly the man ducks and twists with a speed Paz wasn’t expecting, dropping to the ground and slashing upwards with his right hand. Paz only has a fraction of a second to see the micron-thin nanoblade jutting from his wrist, no doubt concealed within his uniform (he was fiddling with something on his fucking wrist and you even bother to check, supplies Paz’s brain unhelpfully.) Paz dodges, rolling out of the way instinctively, only to realise the imp wasn’t slashing towards him. He was aiming at the central pillar of the tent, and although Paz’s armor plates would have easily stopped a little nanoblade like that, it slices through the three-inch thick wooden pillar like butter.

Time seems to slow down a little, and Paz somehow has the time to see, quite distinctly, the two halves of the pillar slide against each other before the entire tent collapses on the both of them with a thundering crash.

He doesn’t black out this time. He’s just trapped.

Trapped, and furious. Somehow, that fucking imp has managed to bring down another thing on top of him. A wooden support of some description is pinning his arms down, and his dagger is just out of reach, and the heavy assemblage of cloth and wood and ropes makes it hard even for him to move. 

He struggles, cursing through his breath. All in all, it takes him a good minute to disentangle himself and cut through the cloth so he can get up. 

He looks around, and it’s pandemonium. The tent he and the imp were in is entirely flattened, and although it’s only been a couple of minutes, the largest tent already seems to be on fire. There’s a shout, then a sinister cracking sound, and then that tent as well starts sagging and then, with a slinking sound almost like a soft sigh, collapses on itself as well, like a slow, gigantic wounded beast. 

There are yells, blaster fire, a few explosions, it seems. The loud whine of repulsors, dusty wind rushing in through the mouth of the cave, blowing down what’s left of the remaining tents. A ship landing outside? It’s difficult to parse and Paz is feeling uncharacteristically shaken by the sheer amount of mayhem that seems to have happened in such a short amount of time. 

Instead of doing anything, he just stares at it, with something a little like awe.

Then someone shakes him by the arm, jolting him out of his daze.

“Did you do this? Is this your fault, Mando? What did you do?”

It’s the Zabrak, Ensu, yelling through the noise and confusion. Paz doesn’t quite know how to answer, so he doesn’t.

The Zabrak looks like he wants to say something else - something distinctly uncomplimentary, probably - but he’s interrupted by a sudden trembling in the ground, like an earthquake. New sounds join the din of laser fire, explosions, and repulsors. 

A hissing, clicking sound.

Ensu looks up and even in the uncertain light of the fires and the laser blasts, Paz can see his face drain of colour.

“Oh fuck,” he says. “Fuck. Mother save me. We’re dead.”

Paz looks in that direction, trying to make out the shape of whatever’s out there.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“A stinger! The noise must have attracted it… Do something!”

“Do what?”

“Anything!”

Paz looks up, as the cave is briefly lit by a flare from an indistinct source, straight into the huge, clicking mandibles of armoured beast as large as a house, with a long tail covered in some kind of articulated chitinous armour ending in a menacing point.

“Oh,” says Paz flatly. “So that’s what they look like. I see.”

* * *

There are several of them. The first one was not even the largest. Their shell-like exoskeletons easily repeal blaster fire, and the mandibles can snap a man in half. 

Overall, it’s not the funnest fight Paz has ever been in. It’s made even more depressing by the clear sound, in the background, of some kind of large ship taking off, while the group of scavengers and Paz are desperately fighting for their lives.

On top of everything, the imperial is gone, and all chance of finding the beskar with him. 

When morning comes, two of the beasts are dead, and one has run away. Paz is still standing, as is the Zabrak, who, it turns out, is pretty good in a fight, and wields a vibrolance with deadly accuracy. 

The rest of the little group hasn’t fared so well.

Ensu looks at Paz in the greyish light of the dawn, and wipes the sweat off his brow. 

“So,” he says conversionally. “That went well.”

Paz doesn’t answer. There’s not a lot he can say.

The Zabrak kicks at some debris dejectedly and sighs. “Okay. You owe me passage off this planet, mandalorian.”

“What?”

“Told you. That imp’s ransom was going to get me off this shithole. The way I see it, it’s the least you could do.”

“Fine,” says Paz. There’s room on the ship, and he can probably drop the Zabrak off not too far. “Sorry about your friends,” he adds, looking at the smeared remains strewn about the cave. It’s hard to tell who was who, exactly.

The Zabrak shrugs. “Like I said. Those weren’t my friends. Come on, let’s get back to your ship. I’ve had enough of this place.”

Paz quite agrees.


	3. The shipyard

Ensu drapes himself bonelessly over the co-pilot chair, picking at his pointy teeth with one long fingernail. He just ate, ingesting a worryingly large amount of pure dried meat. Watching him eat is a spectacle that will take getting used to, in Paz’s opinion. Paz, of course, will eat later, in the privacy of his quarters. 

That’s a little annoying. He was getting used to the freedom that being alone in his ship provided.

“So. What do we do now?” asks the Zabrak, dangling his feet.

Paz surveys the controls. The _Acanth_ is in stable orbit above the planet they just left, fully fuelled up and for once, not acting up. If only he had a destination. “I still need that officer. I guess you don’t have a tracking fob, or anything like that?” he asks, not really hopeful.

Ensu shakes his head. “No, we never got a fob. It’s not like anyone was guild, or anything. One of the guys got a tip off a New Republic Marshall, that’s all. This guy’s the head of an imp faction, apparently. Small one, but the Republic wants him.”

“That guy? He’s only a captain.”

“Yeah, like I said, it’s a small group, not like that Moff with the scary droids or the blue guy. But they still want him. He’s called Kelran Norsen. He’s some sort of engineer, apparently. Maybe they think he’s building another Death Star or something? Oh, by the way, I was meaning to ask, how’d he get the drop on you, anyway? I mean, you’re all like…” Ensu waves a hand at Paz, seemingly trying to indicate his general size, “...and he’s scrawny. Also, I didn’t think imperial engineers could best Mandalorians in hand to hand combat?”

“That’s not what happened,” says Paz, through gritted teeth. “He brought down the tent on top of me.”

The Zabrak lets out a huff of laughter. “That must have been fun.”

“About as much as you’d imagine.” Paz has no intention of telling him that, in fact, this is the second time that imperial tried to crush him to death.

“So,” says Ensu, sitting up. “Serious talk time. I may have some more information, if you really want that imp.”

“And what do you want in exchange?” says Paz cautiously.

“Oh. You know. The usual. Wouldn’t say no to enough credits to buy my own ship.”

Paz throws him a _look_ through his helmet. “Do I look like I have that much money on me?”

“No,” says the Zabrak cheerfully, “especially not given the piece of shit you’re flying. But here’s the thing. I’m also looking for some friends of mine. I help you out, you help me out. How does that sound?”

“Depends on how good your info is, I suppose.”

“Well, how about this. I tell you, you go check it out, then you take me where I want to go.”

That sounds a little too good to be true. “Where, exactly, do you want to go?” Paz asks.

Ensu grins, showing his fangs. “Ah. That’s the thing. That’s where it gets a little… tricky. Corellia.”

Paz shakes his head. “ _Corellia_? No. I’ll drop you off anywhere in the Outer Rim if you like, but Corellia? Right now, when the Core is crawling with Republic ships?”

“Ah, come on. I’ve got some really good info,” the Zabrak says with a teasing lilt in his voice. “Besides, you don’t strike me as the kind of man who’s afraid of a little trouble. It’ll be fun.”

“It’s suicide.”

“Can’t be worse than those scorpion things, though, can it? Come on. Give me your word, or whatever. I’ve heard you people are all honorable and shit.”

“Fine,” grumbles Paz. “But your info had better be good.”

“It is. Listen. That captain guy, he moves around a lot. He’s got a ship, not a real big one, not like a star destroyer or anything, but it’s really well defended. He’s got some kind of elite TIE squadron, that’s what they say. Real hard to take down. A few people have seen them in the quadrant, but they keep moving, like I said. But this one guy that was with us, Mother rest his soul, he heard from _another_ guy that they’ve been seen several times around this big asteroid field near the Girel Nebula. And the thing is, I happen to know there used to be a secret imperial supply base up there, you know, one of those with a shipyard and shit.”

“How come you know about it?”

“Well… maybe I used to run some contraband in another life. Maybe I kinda had a deal with the imps that were there. You know, the kind of deal where they report back to their bosses that one of their cargos didn’t make it and then I show up at a big outer rim star market with tons of interesting imperial stuff to sell and everyone ends up a lot richer. Was fun while it lasted.” Ensu sighs ruefully. “Anyway, the place has been deserted for years. Most of the stuff’s still there, though, it’s too heavy to move and besides it’s a pain in the ass to navigate that nebula. But it struck me as an interesting coincidence, that’s all, that those ships were seen there. I mean, it’s not like there’s anything else up there…” 

Paz thinks it through. It’s not great, but it’s a lead. Besides, if the imp is stockpiling beskar, he’s got to put it somewhere. If Paz is lucky, there may even be more in that base. And he hasn’t had any other lead on any steel in weeks. “Okay,” he says. We’ll try that. What are the coordinates?”

“Yeah, about that, no offense, but I’ve seen you fly, and you’re not going to be able to make it through that nebula. So, just…” The Zabrak makes a kind of shooing gesture towards Paz.

“You want me to hand _you_ the commands?”

“Well, that depends. You want to find your pretty imp boyfriend, or you don’t?”

“It’s not him I’m interested in,” says Paz through gritted teeth. “He’s got something I want.” He stands up. If the Zabrak wants to fly, that’s fine by him. He’ll be the first to admit he’s not the galaxy’s greatest pilot. 

“I’m sure he does,” says Ensu with a salacious grin, dropping down in the pilot’s chair and quickly flicking a few controls. “Now, let’s see what this old pile of bolts of yours can really do.”

* * *

The Nebula isn’t far, but it takes a few carefully plotted hyperspace jumps to get in there. All in all, it takes them a little more than a standard day, because you also have to wait for the endlessly flowing gases to move into the right configuration, and Paz is forced to admit that yes, this is way beyond his meager skills as a pilot. The Zabrak, though, seems as happy as a puffer pig in shit. He chooses a convoluted approach vector, one that moves uncomfortably close to the roiling waves of gas, but that should, apparently, hide their approach from most tracking equipment. Something to do with magnetic anomalies, but Paz didn’t really listen to Ensu’s enthusiastic explanations on the subject. 

They hide in the shadow of a small, ragged asteroid and creep close to a larger one that apparently hides the old imperial base. Ensu crows in triumphs. 

“Ha! I knew it,” he says, pumping his fist. “Look at that!”

Slowly, the large asteroid emerges from the shadows, and the outline of a large bay comes into view. It’s still active. Close to the bay, there’s a large, dagger-shaped ship, about 150 meters in length, its engines idling in stationary flight.

“Nice,” says the Zabrak with a low whistle. “That’s Raider-class corvette. With some modifications to its sublight engines, if I’m not mistaken… and see that hangar bay on its side? That’s not standard. And the shield generators look weird too… Maybe all that’s your little friend’s work? Very cool.” Ensu turns to Paz with a grin.

Paz looks at the ship. “Just looks like your standard imp ship to me,” he says.

“Heathen. You have no appreciation for beauty. Now, _that_ is a hot little piece of ass right there.”

“If you say so. I don’t really care. How do we get inside that base?”

“I’m not going in there. _You’re_ going in there. Your armour thing… That thing at the neck, that’s a space seal, isn’t it?”

Paz’s hand rises to his neck. “Yes. I can seal the whole suit, if I want. It has its uses. But I don’t have an oxygen generator with me. I’d only be able to last a few minutes. After that, the scrubber will stop working and I’ll run out of air.”

“That should be enough, though.” Ensu pulls up a complicated-looking graph that Paz stares at, pretending he understands what he’s seeing. “See, the little asteroid we’re on is on a complex elliptical orbit, right? Now, I’ve calculated the focal points and provided nothing moves too much, it should basically take us just under there,” he says, pointing at the lower right corner of the large opening of the base. From this close, it’s obvious it’s not just a hangar. There are cranes and loaders protruding from it, and some sort of scaffolding, holding up what looks like the skeleton of a TIE fighter in the process of being built. “Couple hundred meters, to be exact. Think your suit can make it?”

“Yeah. Easily,” says Paz, and the Zabrak grins at him. Paz grins back, although Ensu won’t see him. He’s starting to like the pointy-toothed bastard.

* * *

Getting inside the base is, indeed, a piece of cake. It’s a tiny hop from the _Acanth_ to the large asteroid that houses the base, and then, it’s just a matter of using the heavy equipment in the bay as cover to slip into what looks like one of the ship repair docks.

At that point, Paz is expecting some kind of security. A squad of troopers, a few droids, perhaps. He’s very ready for that. This time, he’s taken the heavy gun, so it really shouldn’t be too much of a problem. 

What he finds, though, is a bunch of welder droids working on some complex-looking engine, and one man, busily typing at a holo table, some sort of schematic hovering over it. 

He’s wearing overalls, but Paz recognises him immediately. The officer. The one that likes to drop things on top of people.

There’s the sudden sound of a warning siren - Paz must have triggered some sort of alarm system breaching the bay’s air containment shield, and the man reacts immediately, reaching for a blaster and firing at Paz. 

He doesn’t even bother to dodge. That kind of firepower just bounces harmlessly off the beskar. He returns fire, once, aiming for the holotable rather than the officer, since he still has some questions to ask him, and it explodes satisfyingly.

There’s nothing like heavy ordinance, really.

The imp manages to dodge most of the debris with a quick roll to the side, rather impressively, but there’s no good cover and Paz has him in his sights. 

“Yeah, stop right there, princess.” Even at a distance, he can’t help but notice the slight grimace of annoyance at that word. It’s satisfying. “You’ve got nowhere to go. Now why don’t you behave and throw that blaster to me, yeah?”

The officer looks at him for a second or so, frozen, then he sighs. “Fine.”

He puts the gun down on the ground in front of him and slides it towards Paz, a little clumsily. It skids much too fast on the ground towards Paz, who reflexively kicks it away instead of looking at the imp’s hands as he should have done. 

He barely has one second to dodge the huge arm of a welding droid, coming straight at him with an acetylene torch, called by the small remote the imp was hiding in his other hand. Cursing, he dodges, and fires a concentrated blast at the damn thing, which has the decency to break in two almost immediately. 

Of course, meanwhile, the imp is running, trying to reach a rapidly closing door, but this time, Paz is ready, and launches a grapple at him, The metal wire wraps around the imp’s legs, his head banging hard on the floor.

“Annoying little son of a bitch,” grumbles Paz to himself, as he picks up the imperial, who’s not unconscious, exactly, but a little knocked out by the blow to the head. It’s quick work to use the rest of the wire to tie him down, securely this time, although Paz double checks that this time, the man isn’t holding any more surprises. 

“Right. Now, let’s continue our conversation, shall we?” Paz says. 

The imp looks up at him, glaring angrily. “I’m not giving you the steel, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah. We’ll see about that. Either tell me where it is quickly and we’re done, or we can take our time. I don’t mind, I’ll get the steel either way.”

The imp raises an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’ll tell you where it is?”

“Well. It’s simple. You sit here, I ask questions. If you don’t answer, I shoot you. In the arm, maybe. Somewhere where it hurts, but it won’t kill you. Then I ask again. Then if you don’t answer that time, I shoot you again. Do you get the picture?”

The imp looks back at him with cold fury in his eyes, clutching his arm to his side. “Vividly.”

“So are you going to talk?”

“No,” says the imperial. 

“Too bad, princess,” says Paz, taking aim with one of his smaller guns. The big one would just rip the imp’s arm off. “I warned you.”

He’s about to press the trigger when a small, shrill cry stops him.

“No! No, please, don’t shoot!”

The sound of that voice is so unexpected that Paz looks round, and it’s a kid. 

It’s a small, scrawny thing, probably not a day above eight, in an imperial cadet’s uniform, a girl, her long brown hair tied back tightly behind her head, her face pale but determined. She’s holding a stormtrooper’s E-11, and it looks grotesquely big in her hands, but her aim is steady and she looks like she knows how to use it.

Paz tilts his head slightly to the side. “I wouldn’t try that, if I were you,” he says, and at the exact same moment, the imp speaks as well.

“Stand down immediately, cadet,” he says, his voice tense. “That’s an order.”

“No!” says the kid, her voice trembling. “Captain, he…”

“Stand down. That’s an order,” says the imp, his voice imperious, and something else. Scared, maybe. “Put down that weapon immediately and go back to your post. Now.”

“I...” she looks abashed, for a second, then a kind of fierce light comes into her eyes. “No. I’m not letting him hurt you!

“Jyea, I need you back there with the others, now!”

“No! He’s… he’s going to kill you! I don’t want him to kill you, captain...” she says, and to Paz’s horror, the end of that sentence is swallowed into a kind of hitching sob.

He’d gladly face an army of Death Troopers rather than a crying little girl.

“Come on, kid. I’ll only shoot him if he doesn’t give me the information I need. Now put the gun down.”

The girl’s eyes dart frantically from Paz to the officer. She takes a little shaky breath, but she doesn’t lower the gun. And her aim seems, to be honest, quite good.

The imp’s eyes shut for a second as though gathering himself. Paz can almost see him trying to think himself out of this situation and failing. “Fine,” he says. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll tell you what you need to know. Just… Let her go, please.”

“You heard him, kid. Put down the gun and run along.”

“No!” She yells, shaking her head. Her big eyes are full of tears. “No. I won’t give you my gun. You’re a bad man. You’ll shoot me.”

Paz takes one step towards the kid. It hurts, to see a little one so scared, holding a gun that’s almost bigger than her. It’s wrong. “Listen, kid,” he says, trying to sound reassuring, “unlike the Empire, I don’t shoot children. What do you think i am?”

“I think you’re an big idiot,” she says, smiling in triumph.

Then there’s a sudden movement behind Paz, but it’s too late to turn around, and he barely has time to see several small shapes emerging from the shadow before he’s hit by stun fire.

* * *

Paz wakes up in a holding cell, being nudged by someone’s foot. He grunts and sits up, with difficulty: his hands are tied in front of him in a pair of force cuffs. There’s another pair of cuffs on his legs, but they don’t seem to be on.

He looks up at whoever’s kicking him, and it’s another kid, in a dark uniform, carrying a blaster rifle with casual proficiency. This one looks like she’s about seventeen or eighteen, with dark skin and black hair that’s tied severely behind her head.

“Get up. The captain wants to see you,” she says, waving the barrel of her weapon at him.

“Good. I kind of want to see him too,” Paz mutters. He’s feeling a little woozy from the stun blast, but it’s not too bad. He hauls himself up to his feet and follows the girl out of the cell.

Outside, the corridor is full of busy looking, uniformed kids. Kids carrying datapads, kids carrying tools, all of them in uniforms, straight-backed as they walk briskly with impeccable military bearing.

“How many of you _are_ there?” he asks.

She throws him a dark look. “There’s a lot of us, so don’t get any ideas. More than half of everyone that was at Starseeker Academy,” she says, chin jutting proudly as she walks, as though Paz should recognize the name.

“Sorry, kid, I have no idea what that is.”

She looks a little crestfallen. “Really? Advanced starship engineering? We all came from the pilot program. Selected specially. It was a great honor to be part of it. You sure you’ve never heard of it?”

“Nope, sorry. So all of you are kids? Apart from the captain, I mean.”

“I’m not a _kid_. I’m almost eighteen. Most of us are almost grown-up, you know.”

“Yeah, sorry. You’re a bunch of kids. So that’s what that asshole of a captain is doing? Building an army of child soldiers? Just when I thought the empire couldn’t get worse…”

“No!” She stops suddenly, dark eyes glaring angrily at Paz. “That’s not what he’s doing at all! He _saved_ us. All of us. When the empire fell, all the other officers… they just fled. They left us behind. They didn’t care what happened to us. But not him. _He_ stayed. He took us in, organised us into a crew. He took some of us, the oldest one, and he… he commandeered us a ship. Our ship. The _Safeguard_.”

“Oh, you mean that the corvette that’s outside?”

She nods. “Yes. She’s the best of her class in the galaxy. We improved her a lot. The captain’s a genius, you know.”

“And now you guys live here?”

“No.” She starts walking again, nudging him with the barrel of her gun to encourage him to do the same. “At first we moved around a lot. Some kids had families who were still alive, maybe, so we went to look for them. We found a few. The rest of us… we’re here because we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Even that little kid? You’re not going to tell me she was at the Academy, was she?”

“No. Some kids had brothers or sisters, and sometimes, when we got to wherever they were from, we found the kids, but not the parents. That’s how Jyea ended up with us. She was four when we picked her up. She’s Jel’s little sister. You know him, he’s one of our stormtroopers. You shot him,” she says, accusingly. “Anyway, when we got to his planet, their town had been burned down by a Rebel raid. There was no one left to take care of her. She was starving when we finally found her. So... You see? He’s not an… an _asshole_ like you said. He takes care of us. There’s no Academy anymore, but we’re still his cadets, he says. We’re the last of the empire.”

“There’s no empire left, kiddo. If he really cared about you, your captain would just hand you over to the New Republic.”

“Really?” she laughs bitterly, a sound that’s far too old for someone like her. “Do you know what life is like for imperial refugees, right now? I’ve seen it. We’ve been there, you know, to try to find some kids’ families. There are entire systems full of camps. People starve. It’s _awful_ there. And there are so many orphans… you have no idea. No one’s going to take us in. We’re just going to end up rotting in camps. Besides, we’re free, you know. We can leave whenever, if we want. But we’re not going to. We’re strong, together. And we’re safe with the captain. We’re a family.”

“Yeah. I know what you are,” says Paz. “You’re a Clan.”

She looks at him quizzically at that, clearly not getting what he means. “Whatever,” she snaps. “We’re here. Get in, _scum_.”

Paz can’t help but grin to himself. She sounds so proud saying that. It sounds like something she’s rehearsed in front of a mirror many times and only finally gets to say to someone.

“Sure thing, kid,” he says agreeably.

* * *

It’s a large room, in the usual imperial style, all dark metallic walls, flat luminous panels, except two of the walls have been directly carved into the reddish rock of the asteroid, which gives the room a cosier look than usual. Well, slightly less cold, at any rate. It seems to be some sort of briefing room, with a large table surrounded by severe-looking armchairs, and a big holoprojector in the corner, now entirely turned off. There’s a blaster on the table, at the far end.

“Hello again,” says the imp. “You’re surprisingly hard to get rid of, it seems.” His uniform is impeccably buttoned, its high collar tight against his long throat, his face handsome and haughty.

“Oh, you have no idea,” mutters Paz.

“Please, do sit down.” The imp’s tone is coldly polite. He indicates one of the steel chairs, not far from the table. Both are fixed to the floor, Paz notes.

He sits, and grunts in surprise. Some sort of magnetic device has been added to the chair, and it attaches to his ankle restraints automatically, locking them tight against the legs of the chair. Instinctively, he tries to struggle, but the next second, something else activates, and suddenly his wrists are pulled down to the chair’s armrests, where the cuffs lock onto a similar device. 

“Ah, yes. Unavoidable, I’m afraid,” murmurs the imp. “I’m sorry, I have to think of my own safety.”

Paz tests the restraints. Nothing moves. “What, you don’t have a little girl to get you out of trouble, this time?”

To his surprise, the imp smiles faintly at that. “Or a wall to drop on top of you. And without either of those, I’m afraid I’d find myself at rather of a disadvantage.” 

He sits down on the other chair, at the other end of the table. “Speaking of cadet Enzellen, I gave her a strong talking-to, by the way. It was a clever tactic, but a little too reckless for my tastes. Her own idea, apparently. She’s a little upset with you for shooting her brother. He’s doing fine, in case you were worried about him.”

Paz grits his teeth. “I shot a stormtrooper. I didn’t expect him to be a kid.”

The imp raises his eyebrows. “He’s twenty. Hardly an unusual age, in the corps. What were you doing at that age, I wonder?”

At that age, Paz had been a fighter for years, of course. He’d have strangled anyone who’d have said he was ‘just a kid’. But somehow it felt different, looking at the boy’s face. Maybe that’s age catching up to him. 

“You’re the one who put him on the field,” he says accusingly. 

“Yes. And I take full responsibility for that. Though to be fair, I did not expect to encounter a heavily armoured mandalorian on this particular outing. It’s a lovely armour, by the way. Exquisite workmanship. Pure forged beskar, isn’t it?”

“You examined my armour?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I couldn’t resist. Oh, don’t worry, I did not remove your helmet. I heard some of your people don’t like to take their helmets off in front of outsiders.” 

“Members of my Creed never remove their helmets. Not even in front of other Mandalorians.” 

“Really? Not even in private? That must be quite inconvenient.”

“It’s none of your business.” 

There’s something vaguely intrusive about the interest on the imp’s handsome face, who’s looking at him the way a scientist examines a particularly fascinating specimen. It feels strangely intimate. 

“Ah. Well, I suppose I can wait until you’re dead to remove it, then. I wouldn’t want to offend your sensibilities.”

“Oh, am I going to die, then?”

“Yes,” he says, his eyes flicking to the blaster next to him for a second. “That’s also inevitable. You’re much too dangerous. Also, I really would like to get my hands on your armour, and I think it’s unlikely you’ll give it to me while you’re alive.”

“You’re correct there,” says Paz between clenched teeth.

“Still, there’s no reason we can’t have a civil evening together before we get to that, is there? After all, you did help me considerably earlier.”

“Yeah. Though right now, I’m sort of regretting saving your ass, to be honest.”

“I can’t blame you there.” The captain leans back in his chair, crossing his legs. Damn, but he’s a handsome bastard. It’s not the kind of thought Paz would expect to be first and foremost in his brain in this situation, tied up to a chair and about to be executed, but he can’t help it. He’s always had a weakness for blondes. “I’m afraid I’m forgetting my manners,” says the imp. “I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Kelran Norsen. You’ve seen some of my battalion, I think.

“I’ve seen a bunch of kids playing soldier.”

“I don’t think you ought to underestimate them. They bested you earlier, didn’t they? They’re extremely well trained. I just wish they didn’t have to see active service so soon. Still… that’s war for you, I guess.” He sighs. “Ah, well. Would you like a drink?”

“What?” Paz blinks, confused at the sudden change of pace. 

“I asked whether you would like a drink.”

“With you?”

“Well, yes. I don’t exactly have anyone else to drink with. The children are much too young, and besides, I’m their commander. Ah, but perhaps you can’t, with your helmet? I should have thought this through a little better.”

“I can drink,” says Paz gruffly. “But not with my hands tied.”

“No, I suppose not,” murmurs Norsen. “Unless… a straw, perhaps?”

Paz frowns. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Well, yes, I guess. I’m sorry. I’m not very used to these kinds of situations, I’m afraid.”

Norsen gets up and always to a recessed shelf on the wall, pours two glasses of something that looks like nice Corellian whisky. He places one in front of Paz and takes the other back to his own chair.

“Now, if I release one of your hands slightly, will you promise not to try to throw this glass at me? It would be an awful waste. This is my last bottle, you see.”

“Nah. Would be a shame to cut up that pretty face of yours. Besides, that does look like nice whisky.”

“It is.” He fiddles with a small remote, and Paz’s left arm is free. Well, not exactly. It’s still tethered to the chair with some sort of energy field, which means moving requires a fair amount of effort. It would actually be impossible, Paz judges, to throw anything like this. 

He reaches out nonetheless and manages to grab the glass. Norsen’s eyes are on him, politely curious, as he knocks back the glass in one go. 

It is _excellent_ whisky.

Norsen sips at his own drink. “I was wondering something, if you don’t mind,” he says. “Why did you come to stop those men, in the tent?”

“I needed to ask you where the steel was.”

“You could easily have waited, though, I’m sure. You hardly needed to help me. It seems a little odd to me. You don’t seem to have a lot of affection for imperial soldiers, unless I’m mistaken.”

“Fuck the Empire. It destroyed my home. It tried to eliminate my people.”

“Ah. Well, I suppose that’s true. And yet you came to help me. Why?”

“I guess I thought what they were doing was… dishonourable.”

“Oh, I see. Is that also typical of your Creed? Mandalorians have no problem with murder and torture, but rape is where they draw the line. Is that it?”

“We’re not _torturers_.”

“You were fully ready to shoot me until I gave up the beskar earlier.”

“Yeah, well, I need that beskar for my Clan. Torture is… well, it is what it is, but at least it serves a purpose. Rape serves none. That is why.”

“I see. Interesting. I suppose it makes sense, though.”

“I also have a question, actually,” says Paz. “What the fuck are you doing? Why are you talking to me like this?”

“Because I can. You see, I don’t see any logical choice other than to terminate you. So why shouldn’t I talk to you? What harm could it possibly do? You interest me. And I haven’t spoken so candidly to anyone in years. It’s quite refreshing.”

“And what if you _don’t_ kill me?”

“Ah. But you see, I, too, desperately need the beskar. For my troops.”

“What for? Armour?”

“No. Well, some of it will be used for armour, but…” Norsen grins to himself, slowly. “Most of it is for my prototype.”

“Your what?”

“My prototype. You see, this is how I plan to ensure the cadets are taken care of properly. I don’t exactly trust any of these warlords that seem to have risen from the ashes of the Empire to want to take care of a full crew of untested children. But I’ll have something they want, once the prototype is done. I’ll be able to barter for their safety.”

“A prototype of what, exactly?”

“A new kind of TIE Fighter. One that breaks free from that stupid tradition of making them as vulnerable as possible. You see, that has always been a weakness of the Imperial navy. Large ships are very impressive, yes, and they do give you some kind of psychological advantage, Tarkin was right there. But I think history has shown us that even the largest ship ever built is vulnerable, if your defenses aren’t strong enough. And I don't consider throwing out waves and waves of undefended fighters and under-armoured troopers a viable defense. It simply doesn’t make sense, especially now. In this new order that’s emerging, we can’t afford to throw pilots away anymore. Not that we ever could, in my opinion. Talent needs to be fostered and nourished, not thrown away on suicidal tactics.”

Norsen leans forwards, eyes intent. “You see, the new type of TIE I’m building will actually be designed to protect its pilot. They have shielding, improved maneuverability, superior armour, all without sacrificing an ounce of speed or firepower.” 

“How? By building them out of beskar? There isn’t enough of the stuff in the galaxy to make that possible.”

“Ah. But you see, I’ve developed a technique.” Again, that slow, delighted smile spreads over his features. “I wish I could tell how it works, but I’m afraid it’s a little technical. Basically, using crystalline structures made out of nanotubes, I’ve found a way to create a lattice that replicate most of the properties of properly forged beskar steel with a fraction of the material. I can build TIE fighters that are virtually impregnable to laser fire, and can take a direct hit from a proton torpedo with their shield downs and come out mostly unscathed.”

There’s a kind of excited, breathless quality to Norsen’s voice. It’s a little cute.

“And it’s not just ships, but stormtrooper armour too. Yes, light armour may have made sense when the empire had an unlimited supply of soldiers, but even then, it was wasteful. I’d much prefer troopers that could actually survive a firefight, if possible.”

“Oh,” interjects Paz, “was that what that kid was wearing? Well, sorry, princess, he still went down when I shot him.”

“Ah, yes. You see, unfortunately, the plates I have now don’t cover the entire back. That’s exactly why I need more beskar, you see.”

“Oh. So basically you’re telling me you’re going to melt down my armour to protect your little kid stormtroopers?”

“Yes. This is very pleasant, is it not?” Norsen stretches out, cat-like. “I don’t feel the slightest need to lie to you, or pretend, or anything. I don’t think I’ve had such a frank talk in years.”

He leans forward, refilling both their drinks generously, and sits back. His pose is less strict now, his arm flung over the back of his chair, his grey eyes glittering in the half light. There’s something undefinable about his expression, a kind of half smile that could be either mocking or bitter.

Paz picks up his glass again. “Are you sure you’re going to kill me?” he asks bluntly. “You don’t look like the type.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s true direct violence isn’t… exactly my style, I suppose. Then again, there’s no one else. As you’ve seen, my troops are not exactly battle-tested.”

“Yeah, you look like you’d much rather have others do your dirty business for you, princess, no offense. Do you think you have the nerve?”

“I… Well, in a way, I suppose that’s a fair question. I seem to lack a certain ruthlessness, I suppose. My teachers would be very disappointed in me.”

“And yet you work for an empire that destroyed entire planets. Doesn’t make much sense.”

“I worked for the empire that sheltered me,” says Norsen, sitting up, suddenly serious. “That took me in when I was orphaned by the clone wars, when I was homeless and starving, roaming the underbelly of the greatest city in the universe with the other street children.”

“You’re from Coruscant?”

The captain nods, his eyes hooded. “Yes. The empire took me in. I was raised in the Academy.”

“To make a killer out of you,” snorts Paz.

“You’re one to talk, Mandalorian. Isn’t that how your people grow? Taking in orphans and making them into soldiers?”

“You know a lot more about us than most people do.”

“Well, when you study beskar, Mandalore does come up quite a bit, yes. Are you a foundling yourself?”

Paz shook his head. “No. I was born the old-fashioned way. Both my parents were of the Creed.”

“Really? I didn’t know Mandalorians had these kinds of relationships.”

“We’re not machines. Of course we have families.”

“Ah. Do you have one?”

“Why? Would it change your mind about killing me if I did?” Paz says, and the captain winces visibly. He’s really not a killer, that one. “No, I do not. I had one, once. A… special kind of arrangement. I had not one, but two. My wife and my husband, both of them much better people than me. Both of them dead, now.”

“I am sorry,” says Norsen softly, looking away.

“And yourself?” says Paz, eager to change the subject. He doesn’t like talking about Yrlic and Llyan. He never does, usually. “You have anyone?”

“No. Well, if you discount the hundred or so foster children I seem to have somehow acquired, that is. But apart from that… I’ve never had anything like that, I’m afraid. I’ve never had a life outside the military, and relationships within the navy are… well, often highly problematic. I’m afraid I wasn’t quite suited for them.”

“What do you mean? No fucking allowed?”

The captain huffs in laughter, once. “Hardly. That would be difficult to enforce, at any rate. I should know, with the number of hormonal teenagers I have under my command. I’ve tried. Believe me, there is no way to keep them off each other. Still as long as they’re civil and everyone is of age and consenting, I don’t suppose there’s much harm in it. No, in the actual Navy, there were... well, how shall I put this?” He looks thoughtful. “There are certain… unspoken rules. The imperial navy has always been highly hierarchical, and there’s a certain _tradition_ of trading certain favours for the protection of powerful people. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that I’ve never been able to resign myself to bending over for power-hungry old men. And alas, I’ve never been very interested in taking advantage of ambitious young men, either. My position does make things rather awkward, I suppose.”

“And if you weren’t in that position? What would you like? A husband? A wife? A family?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t really let myself imagine things going this far.” He looks up at Paz, and there’s something in his eyes. A challenge, maybe. “A good fuck would be nice, certainly. It has been a while.”

There’s a sudden stillness, in the air, like something heavy and portentous. Suddenly, this feels like a game, a dangerous game being played by two players with very little to lose, and inhibitions lowered by half a bottle of strong liquor.

“I think,” says Paz, and it felt like putting moving a piece in a particularly tense game of dejarik, “that I know the kind of thing you would like.”

“Really? And what would that be?”

“How about you come here and untie me, and I’ll show you, sweetheart?”

“I thought I told you not to call me that,” says Norsen, sitting back in his chair, a finger playing at the corner of his lips.

“You told me not to call you ‘princess’. This is different.”

“Is it? And what should I call you, Mandalorian? You know my name. It’s only fair you tell me yours.”

“Paz.”

“Is that a first name? Do you have a clan name?”

“That, I’m not telling you,” says Paz sharply.

“Fair enough, I suppose. Still, it’s nice to have a name to put to your voice, if not your face.”

“So, you want to know what I think you would like, or not?”

“Yes. Why not.”

“To me, you don’t seem like the type who bends over to get favours. You seem like the kind who bends over because he likes it. I think you wouldn’t mind being brought to your knees, actually. If you chose to.”

“An interesting theory.”

“Look at you, princess. All cold and haughty. Too proud to ask for what you really need.”

Norsen gets up, then, his movements fluid and slow, loose-limbed and graceful, and walks slowly towards the chair where Paz is tied up.

“So. Tell me about what you think I need, then, _Paz_ ,” Norsen purrs, sliding between the table and Paz’s chair and perching on the table, so close that their legs are almost touching, so close that Paz feels like he can feel the heat of the man’s body through his armour. His hand reaches out automatically to grab Norsen, to pull him to his lap, where, stars above, Paz is growing hard in his pants.

The cuff suddenly pulls back, slamming his arm back to the chair and tightening again. Norsen smiles. “Sorry. I need you tied up, I’m afraid. You’d kill me.”

“Strangely, I don’t think that’s what I’d do right now, actually,” says Paz, his voice coming out a little husky. This is an interesting game. One he’s pretty sure he knows how to play.

“Really?” There’s a dangerous glint in Norsen’s eyes. “What would you do?”

“Get you naked. Spread you out, on that table, nice and slow.” Paz smiles to himself. “See if your pretty skin is as soft as it looks. See what kind of sounds you make when you’re touched. I bet you moan so prettily, sweetheart. I’d love to hear that.”

“Go on,” breathes Norsen. Paz looks down the man’s body, slowly, appraisingly, stopping when he reaches the crotch, where the fabric of the captain’s uniform is straining, slightly tented.

“Look at you,” he says. “Of course you’d moan. You’re begging for it, aren’t you? I haven’t laid a finger on you, and you’re already hard for me. You’d look so good naked on your back on that table, sweetheart.” He pauses, tilts his helmet to the side. “I’d like you with your hands over your head, I think. Holding one wrist with your other hand, all stretched out for me. All laid out so I can look at you. I bet you’d be so good for me. I bet you’d obey so very well.”

“And what if I didn’t?” asks Norsen.

The room seemed to have contracted around them, as though there was no light, no air, except between the two of them.

“Bad boys get spanked,” said Paz levelly.

“Ah,” exhales Norsen, his eyelashes fluttering for a second. “Interesting. I’ll make sure to remember that.”

Paz drinks in the sight of him, the way his mouth is slightly slack, plush lips half parted. “I think, though, you’d want to be good for me. You can’t help it. It’s in your nature. You’d do your best to stay still, no matter what I did to you. Try as hard as you can to please me.”

“Well. That depends. Do good boys ever get spanked?” Norsen asks, sounding casual. But his cheeks are flushed.

Paz grins to himself. Fuck, this is fun. “Good question. Good boys get spanked, of course. Good boys beg for it.”

“Ah. Good to know. Go on.”

“I’d play with you, take my time. Your nipples, first, I think. They looked very nice, when I saw you. Pink and soft. They looked like they’d be sensitive. Pretty pink nipples like that deserve to be pinched, don’t you think? I bet they get nice and hard. I bet they get darker, too. Red. Like your lips, right now. You’re biting your lower lip, you know. It’s very fetching.”

“Am I? I hadn’t noticed. Go on.”

“I’d keep playing with your tits until you can’t help squirming, until you can’t tell whether what you’re feeling is pain or pleasure. And then, only then, I’d move on to your cock. You’d be so hard. Leaking for me. Precum pooling all over your nice, tight little abs. You’re so hard now, sweetheart, look at you. You’re a mess. There’s a big stain in the front of your pants. You want to take it out for me, baby?”

“Not… just now, no.” Norsen’s tone is level, but his breathing is hitched, and his cheeks are a lovely dark shade of pink. “Go on.”

“Sure thing, darling. Whatever you want. So... I’d run my fingers along your shaft, lightly, just teasing. Then I’d stop at the head, rub some of those lovely juices all over my fingers, get them nice and sleek. You know why, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Norsen doesn’t answer. His eyes are dark, pupils blown so wide the blue is barely visible.

“Because it’s not your little cock I’m interested in, sweetheart. I’d push your legs open, spread you open, and I’d slide my fingers down until I reach your tight little hole and I’d…”

“Fuck,” swears Norsen, and he falls heavily to his knees. His hands reach for Paz’s crotch, fumbling with the ties of his codpiece, his clever engineer’s fingers finding the catch almost immediately. “Fuck.”

“Good boy,” breathes Paz as Norsen pulls him out. It feels so good. He’s so fucking hard, he could use his cock as a hammer. He hears Norsen’s little breath of surprise at the size of him, and he chuckles. “Good boy. You like that?”

“You’re enormous,” says Norsen under his breath. He sounds a little shocked.

“Well, it goes with the rest of me,” says Paz. “Go on. Take me in that pretty mouth of yours.” He bucks his hips up. What he wouldn’t give, right now, to have his hands free. He’d fist his hands into Norsen’s hair, force him down on his cock, make him choke on it.

Then the next second, all thought of that flies out the window, and he wouldn’t change a single thing about their positions. Because now Norsen is lapping at the head of his cock, laving it, his tongue wrapping cleverly around him, stroking him, and it’s heaven. 

Then Norsen stops, and looks straight at Paz, and very deliberately licks his lips, leaving them shiny with spit. He bends down again, and for a second, Paz forgets how to breathe.

Yeah, it’s been a while, and a blowjob is always nice, but it’s not just that. It’s how dedicated Norsen is, how hard he’s trying, his lips stretched around Paz’s girth, trying to get down as far as he possibly can, making sweet little choked sounds as Paz’s cock hits the back of his throat, his eyes tightly closed in concentration. It’s so fucking hot that Paz can’t tear his eyes away, can’t stop the flow of incoherent praise from flowing out of his mouth. 

It’s a beautiful sight, and he won’t miss a second of it, not even to look at Norsen’s hand working between his own legs to bring himself off. He feels red hot need pooling in his belly, in his balls. He just can’t help himself, it’s too good, the warmth and the friction and the feeling of that hot mouth around him, the sight of his cock slipping in and out of those pretty lips. Soon Paz is coming with a harsh shout, emptying himself down Norsen’s throat as the man struggles to swallow all of it, moaning as he also reaches his climax, trembling.

Paz stays still for a few moments, his eyes closed, trying to catch his breath. He feels Norsen tuck him back into his pants and move away. He hears him get up. Norsen, too, sounds out of breath.

When Paz finally opens his eyes, Norsen is back in his chair. He looks a little messy. He’s slouched forward, hand clenched on his lap. His face is still flushed, but his mouth is set in a hard line, his expression unreadable.

“Now what?” asks Paz.

Norsen stares at nothing for a moment, then seems to shake himself together. “Now, it’s goodbye, I’m afraid,” he says, picking up the blaster from the table. “I’m sorry. It’s been a pleasure knowing you.”

Those are the last words Paz hears before the blast hits him square in the chest and everything turns to black.

* * *

Paz wakes up, a little surprised. Frankly, he wasn’t expecting to. 

The world swims a little around him, the way it usually does after a strong hit with a stun charge.

He curses, and sits up. He’s still wearing his armour, oddly enough. He wasn’t expecting that either.

There is no light. Automatically, the scope in his helmet switches to night vision, and he looks around. He appears to be back in the cell where he first woke up. 

Except now there’s no light, no sound, not even the hum of aeration systems, usually ever-present in any kind of space installation. And he can’t help but note the air seems distinctly stale, not to mention much colder than it was before.

He takes a look through the tiny opening in the door, a small slit meant to provide guards with a view of the inside of the cell. The corridor outside is just as dark as his cell, and utterly empty.

It’s not hard to put two and two together. The imperial base has been deserted. It’s completely dead.

He gets up to take a look at the door. It’s shut, and even if the maglocks are disengaged, it’s now an immovable slab of metal, much too heavy to be moved. He’s trapped in a small room in an empty base with its life support system switched off and a limited amount of air.

“Fuck,” he swears again, and bangs on the door with a gloved hand in frustration. The sound reverberates through the corridor.

“Hey. Mandalorian. Is that you?” says a familiar voice from somewhere out of sight.

“Ensu?” Paz calls out. “Yeah. I’m over here.”

There’s a faint light, growing closer, and the sound of footsteps. 

“Oh, there you are,” said the Zabrak, sounding relieved. “Mother, I’m glad I decided to check the base. At first I thought you probably left with the rest of them…”

“So the imps are gone, are they?”

“Oh, yeah. Long gone. The entire thing’s empty now. The bay shield is the only thing that’s still on. Lucky, isn’t it? Or all the air would have been sucked out by now. That’s why I thought I’d better check, just in case…”

“Yeah. Thanks,” says Paz, grumpily. That _fucking_ imperial.

“So.” Ensu clears his throat. “Should I ask why you’re stuck in there, or?...”

“It’s a long story.”

“Yeah, thought so. Did you find your imp in the end?”

“Yes,” says Paz, in a tone that he hopes does not encourage further questions. 

“Cool. So… Did you get what you were here for?”

“What do you think?”

“Yeah.” Ensu clears his throat again. “Tough luck, man. So… Are we still on for Corellia?”

“Yeah.” Why the fuck not, at this point? Corellia. Coruscant. Hosnian Prime. What the fuck does it matter?

“Okay. I’ll go get something to cut the door open, shall I?”

“Yeah, do that,” says Paz. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He sits back down on the floor, heavily. He’s trying very hard not to think too hard about what just happened, but it’s difficult. 

That fucking imperial _son of a bitch_.


	4. The traitor

Corellia’s worse than Paz remembered, an overpopulated mess so large it takes them hours before they even get a landing spot. Ensu disappears soon after they land to meet his mysterious friends, although he’s asked Paz if he would take him back to the Rim the following day. 

Paz doesn’t mind waiting. He’s got some repairs to do on the ship, anyway, because the piece of shit is falling apart as usual, and he’s flying back either way. 

Also, the Zabrak is… Well, not bad company. Paz gets very bored in space, and having the pointy-tooth bastard chatting at him is a pleasant distraction.

He doesn’t intend to do anything more on Corellia than tinker around his ship, however. If he doesn’t leave the landing pad, that’s fine by him. Or rather, that’s what he intends to do. Because when he goes to pick up some power-cells he left outside, he’s greeted by a sight he wasn’t really expecting.

That damn imperial, again, standing there as though it was the most natural thing in the world, wearing dark clothes in a Corellian style that definitely fit a lot tighter than an imperial uniform and a supercilious expression on his face.

“That ship,” the imperial says in lieu of greeting, “looks even worse from up close.”

Paz crosses his arms, looking down at him from the ramp.

“I’m sorry it doesn’t meet your standards,” he says. “Any reason why I shouldn’t shoot you where you stand?”

“Well, for one thing, it would attract a lot of attention. Corellians are a pretty uncivilised bunch, if you ask me, but they don’t appreciate people firing blasters in their spaceport. Also, it would be quite rude. I come, as they say, in peace. Well, in truce, maybe.”

“You left me in a cell in an empty space station,” Paz growls. “After shooting me.”

“Well, your friends got you out, didn’t they? Or whoever was on that ship of yours. I thought they might.”

“You said you were going to kill me,” says Paz accusingly.

“Would you rather I had?” Norsen cocks an eyebrow.” I would have thought you’d be more grateful.”

“You didn’t take my armour.”

“Yes. I am aware of that.”

“Why not?” Again, it‘s hard to keep that accusing tone out of his voice. As though in some way, it would be simpler if Norsen had killed him and taken his beskar.

“Hmm. Maybe like you said, it felt a little dishonourable.”

The little superior smirk with which he says that sort of makes Paz want to shake him. Or, maybe, press him against a wall and do all sorts of unspeakable things. Wipe that smile off of his face, at any rate.

“Why are you here?” he asks instead, trying to banish any thoughts that involved physical contact or reducing Norsen to a wide-eyed mess. 

“Like I said, I come in peace. I have a… business proposition of sorts.”

“I don’t do business with imperials,” says Paz bluntly.

“Yes, yes, I know, you made your feelings about the Empire very clear last time. This is more of a… private business.”

“And why would I want to help you?”

“I have something of yours. I’d be willing to trade.”

“My guns.”

“Yes. Lovely workmanship, by the way. Custom-made, if I’m not mistaken. I imagine you’d want them back?”

“Stop playing around. What do you want in exchange?”

“Can we talk about this somewhere a little more private, perhaps?”

“In my ship.”

Norsen shudders dramatically. “If I must.”

* * *

Even in civilian clothes, Norsen manages to look about as out of place in the shabby, slightly stained living quarters of the Acanth as a pampered house cat in a nest of gundarks. He perches fastidiously on the edge of a seat, with a small shake of his head at the patchwork of inexpert repairs that keep the synthcloth together.

“Sorry,” says Paz, plunking himself down opposite Norsen. “The maid’s been away. Now, what do you want?”

“To hire you, I suppose.”

“As what, exactly? I’m not for sale, princess.” Paz can’t resist adding a slightly suggestive lilt to that sentence. The imp, regrettably, does not show any reaction.

“As a bodyguard. I believe it’s a fairly traditional line of work for your people? One evening, and I’ll give you your guns back. It seems more than fair, doesn’t it?”

“Okay. Back up, princess. I have questions. Firstly, why are you here? It’s a big galaxy. Am  
I supposed to think you just happened to walk past and thought ‘oh, wow, I know that ship?’”

“No. I found your ship because I’d scanned for it after your little visit to my workshop.  
It was nicely hidden, but I have my tricks. I also have this habit of checking the spaceports of places I go to for ships I know. I have a reasonable amount of enemies and I like to make sure that they aren’t where I am. What, on the other hand, I don’t know, is what _you_ are doing on Corellia, but I don’t imagine you’re going to tell me, and I don’t care. I, however, am supposed to meet a… well, business partner.”

“Doesn’t sound too friendly, if you need a bodyguard.”

“Well, I’m a wanted man, this is a Republic system, and I wouldn’t really call this acquaintance of mine trustworthy, exactly.”

“And you think I am?”

“I think you want your guns back. Am I wrong?”

Paz does not dignify that with an answer.

“Right,” says the imperial standing up. “So that’s settled. Shall we meet here, say, 2030?”

“Hang on, princess, I didn’t say yes.”

“You’re going to. This saves us both a lot of time. And for the last time,” he says, his eyes suddenly flashing with something like real anger behind his carefully constructed facade of casual disdain, “will you stop calling me that?”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” says Paz.

“Oh, for fuck’s…” It seems to take Norsen a visible effort to contain himself. “Fine. Whatever. 2030, at your ship.”

* * *

There’s enough to do on the _Acanth_ to keep Paz busy. Unfortunately, spaceship maintenance isn’t interesting enough to keep him from thinking about certain things, like the way the tight trousers Norsen was wearing along with a typically low-slung wide Corellian-style belt emphasised his narrow hips, or how the leather jacket he wore on top revealed a lot more of his throat than his uniform did.

It’s ludicrous, really. If he’s doing this, it’s to get his guns back. It has nothing to do with the way that damn imperial’s ass looked in tight black trousers. 

His guns, that’s the only reason he accepted a stupid bodyguard mission. To be honest, even though, yes, it is a fairly traditional occupation for Mandalorians who have to make a living in the galaxy, it has never been something Paz is good at. He much prefers rushing in and shooting at things to standing around looking scary and being bored.

The imperial turns up exactly on time, still wearing the same outfit, although his boots look a little dusty, as though he's had a busy day wandering around town. 

“Where are we going?” asks Paz.

“The lower city, if you must know.” 

His cut-glass accent sounds very out of place when he’s dressed like that. He might look the part, but he certainly didn’t sound it.

“The lower city? Are you sure, princess? It doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”

Norsen sighs. “Listen. I’ve had a… rather long and tiring day. I have to go meet someone I’d much rather not see, in a place I don’t really want to go to. I’d appreciate it, actually, if you could tone down the sarcasm a little.”

Paz rolls his eyes to himself. “Fine, don’t get your panties in a twist. I’ll keep you nice and safe. Be seen and not heard. How about that?”

The imperial smiles tightly. “That would be perfect, in fact.”

* * *

Norsen doesn't say a single word on the way there. He seems to be avoiding any kind of personal transport, perhaps wary of being tracked, in favour of the relative anonymity of public transportation. And in the immense cosmopolitan mess of species and cultures that makes up the Lower City, no one notices them. Even a Mandalorian in heavy armour doesn’t warrant more than a disinterested glance, if that. On Corellia, people have seen everything.

After walking a fair distance along disreputable, half covered streets, lit only by the bright advertisements that littered the buildings, they reach a small, grotty-looking tavern, full of the same crowd you found everywhere in places like that. Drunks, people doing shady deals, a few simply looking for trouble. 

Norsen seems to know exactly where he’s going. He makes his way through the room towards a quiet booth in the back, where a dark-haired man is waiting, already seated. He’s wearing a brownish cloak of some kind, probably in vague deference to the need not to be noticed, although given the way his obviously expensive brightly coloured clothes show under it, he probably doesn’t care very much.

The man is also quite handsome, notices Paz with some annoyance, with strong, assertive features and a short, tidy beard, impeccably groomed. He could be anything from thirty-five to forty. He grins as he stands to greet Norsen, a warm, friendly, totally insincere smile. A politician’s smile.

“There you are,” the man says, his accent even more patrician than Norsen’s. “I was wondering when you’d show. I have to say, your tastes seem to have gone drastically down since I last saw you. This place is filthy. Or is that all you can afford, these days?”

“I’d much rather meet up here than on your turf, commodore Mikas,” says Norsen coldly. 

“Oh come on, do not call me that, Kelran. Firstly, you know very well I’m not a military man anymore, and secondly, do we really have to be so formal with each other?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” says Norsen, sitting down opposite Mikas. Paz remains standing, back to the wall, slightly to the side. He gets a better view of the room, that way, but it’s not like he can’t listen in. “I’m not sure what title to use for the husband of a republican senator. I don’t really keep up with that side of things. ”

The man - Mikas, apparently - sighs dramatically. “Why do you have to be like that? Always so aggressive. This is the first time we’ve met face to face in years, Kel. Let’s catch up.”

“I have nothing to say to you, Ryss. Get to the point.”

Mikas shakes his head amusedly. “So angry, Kel. You see, it’s this kind of attitude that betrays where you come from. It’s so… lower class.”

Norsen inhales sharply, then pauses. “You’re deliberately trying to provoke me, aren’t you?”

“I am, a little.” Mikas smiles a shark’s smile. It sits disturbingly well on his handsome bronzed face. “You’ve always been so easy to rile up. Is it working?”

“You called me here on business,” says Norsen, pointedly ignoring him. “I’d like to know what you have to say.”

“Oh, come on. We can take a few moments to make polite conversation, surely. How have you been? Found a place to unload those brats of yours yet?”

“You know very well I haven’t. Why else would I be here?”

“Well, for the pleasure of my company, of course. Nice bodyguard, by the way,” Mikas says with a disinterested wave of his hand in Paz’s direction. “I’m very flattered you think you need an actual Mandalorian to protect yourself from me.”

“You can’t blame me for not trusting you. Now, can you please get to the point?”

“I will. But you can’t blame me for stalling, either. It’s been a long time. And even dressed like _that_ , you’re a sight for sore eyes, Kel. Stunning as ever.”

“Get to the point,” says Norsen coldly.

“Anything for those pretty eyes,” says Mikas with an ironic little nod. “Now, do you want to hear from the imperial side or the republican side first? I have offers from both.”

“I told you. I will not accept any offer from the New Republic,” says Norsen. “We don’t all enjoy getting in bed with the enemy.”

“Quite literally, in my case,” says Mikas genially. “I would gladly tell you my lovely wife sends her greetings, by the way, but in fact she’d be quite upset if she saw me sitting there with you. She’s very much the jealous type, I’m afraid.”

“And how does that work, exactly? I can’t imagine you’ve changed that much.”

“Oh, I really haven’t. I just try to be careful around dear Percia, that’s all. She’s very fond of me.”

“Then she’s an idiot.”

Mikas smiles his shark’s grin again. “Ah, yes, but a powerful idiot, which makes her useful. Anyway, I imagine you wouldn't be interested in trading certain scientific results against complete immunity and a cushy desk job on Hosnian Prime, then?”

“No,” says Norsen, his tone arctic. 

“More fool you. I have other offers, but they’re significantly less interesting. Unless you’ve decided you’re ready to consider Gideon?”

“I don’t know. Is he ready to offer any guarantees for the children?”

“No. You know him, Kel, that’s not how he works. He wants you to come crawling, then he might make an offer. You know how he likes his little power games.”

Norsen shakes his head. “No.”

Mikas opens his hands in a gesture of powerlessness. “Then I’m afraid I can’t help you. None of the interested parties on the imperial side are particularly keen on your rather numerous brood. You can’t really blame them. Resources are stretched thin as it is. Well…” He smiles. “There’s always Brendol Hux. I haven’t tried him, since you expressly told me not to. But from what I’ve heard, he'd be very glad to take them off your hands. Add them to his collection, so to speak.”

“Not Hux,” hisses Norsen. “Never Hux. That man is despicable.”

“You see? That’s your problem. Ridiculously high moral standards.”

“He had children murder stormtroopers, Ryss.”

“Well, yes, there’s that. And apparently, a lot more besides. But you have to be realistic, here. How long can you keep running? You’ll get caught in the end. You’re not as clever as you think. I hear things…”

“What things?”

“Things like the fact you’ve been forced to abandon that lovely little base I found you in the Girel nebula. I hear a lot of things. That Mandalorian, for instance. I take it it’s the one who prompted you to leave?”

“How do you know that?” says Paz suddenly, rashly, although the second he says it, he knows it's probably a mistake. 

Well, too bad. He’s not exactly the subtle kind, after all. 

“Ah, it speaks!” says Mikas. “I was wondering. I think we share some mutual acquaintances, Mandalorian. Interesting how small the universe really is, when you think about it. But yes, I have heard things. Hence my surprise, seeing you with Kel. I wouldn’t have imagined you’d parted on very friendly terms...”

“Enough. It doesn’t matter,” says Norsen, interrupting Mikas curtly. “Stop playing around. I don’t need that base. I’m perfectly fine with just the _Safeguard_. Not that you actually care, do you?”

“You’re wrong, Kel. I do care. Would I be here if I didn’t?”

“I know you. The only thing you care about is your own interests.”

“You wound me. Surely our past has to count for something? Besides, even if that were true, what if my interests and yours coincided? I can’t deny that it would be very beneficial for me to bring you to my side...”

“Your side. What an interesting way to put it. Was it your side, when you betrayed an entire star fleet to the Rebellion to save your skin?”

“It’s the New Republic now, Kel, and don’t take that tone with me. I’m here because I do care. Do you have no idea how easy it would be for me to have you arrested right now, Mandalorian bodyguard or no?”

“Having me arrested wouldn’t help you. You need me to cooperate.”

Mikas shakes his head. “Oh, Kel, believe me, I could find other ways to make you cooperate if I wanted to. You make it so easy. You think you can trade the safety of those children against what you know? It works both ways. What if someone had those kids? What if they were ready to apply… pressure, let’s say, to them? Don’t you think they’d be able to make you do whatever they wanted?”

“You don’t know where they are,” says Norsen, but he pales visibly. “You’ll never find them.”

“No, I don’t know where they are, but they can be found. It’s just a matter of time. Listen, Kel,” says Mikas soothingly. “I’m not saying I want to do that. I’m just saying you’re more vulnerable that you think, and you shouldn’t dismiss any options. Think about it, that’s all that I’m asking. Just… stop being so intransigeant. It’s very juvenile, and you won’t get anything out of it.”

“Yes, that’s always been your advice to me, hasn’t it? Be less intransigeant.”

“And you should have followed it. You’d be an admiral by now, I hope you realise. I would have helped you. We could have changed things, maybe even changed the course of the war. Do you realise what you could have done? You with your own fleet, instead of buried in a workshop, or in some damn school playing teacher? You could have been somebody.”

“With you by my side profiting from it, I suppose?”

“Well,” says Mikas, and his smile turns tender, and something within Paz twists painfully, “there was a time where you didn’t mind me by your side. I haven’t forgotten, Kel.”

“Neither have I. I also remember what you did when you realised I wasn’t going to play your little games.” 

“Yes. I always wondered what you’d be ready to do for me. It turned out you weren’t ready to do much, in the end.”

“How dare you? I always helped you. You would never have graduated from the Academy without my help.”

“Oh, I would have managed.” Mikas shrugs. “There were other ways. Still, the first time I asked you for anything important, you bailed out.”

“Something important,” says Norsen disdainfully, crossing his arms. “You make it sound so very respectable. Why don’t you just call it what it was?”

“Come on. You would hardly have been the first to sleep with Tarkin to ensure a promotion. Think where you’d be right now, if you hadn’t been so… middle class about it all. Instead of which, you gave me no choice but to…”

“To what? Get rid of me? Throw me to the wolves?”

“You did that to yourself. There was a point, Kel, where your naïveté stopped being charming and became a liability. I needed to be with someone who would play the game with me, someone with the same kind of ambition I had. And you, I’m sorry to say, had none of that.” Mikas smiled humorlessly. “Unfortunately, it gave me no choice but to get rid of you, yes. If you weren’t going to follow my lead, then all you were was a potential rival to be eliminated. You do see the logic, I hope, even if you don’t appreciate it.”

“How can you say that? Ryss, I…” Norsen’s voice shook slightly. “I would have done anything for you.”

“But you didn’t. That’s the problem, you see. You didn’t, which meant you no longer were of any use to me. I hope, this time, you’ll listen to what I’m saying, and forget your ridiculous principles. For your own sake. Not to mention the dear children, of course.”

“Enough. I’ve had enough of this, and enough of you, Ryss,” says Norsen, standing up, his voice blanched. “We’re leaving.”

“If you must,” says Mikas, amicably. “But remember what I said, Kel. It’s only a little question of time. Make the right choice.”

* * *

In a way, Paz admires the controlled, graceful way Norsen storms out. Well, strides out, really, cool and collected, as though he’s just finished a pleasant business conversation and not whatever this hellish mess was. If he’d been in Norsen’s place, that guy Mikas would be picking up his teeth from the surface of the table, right now. Which might not have been the best way to go about it, but then again, Paz is not exactly an expert at negotiations.

Even he can tell this, however, that this didn’t go very well.

He’s not here to offer advice, and he shouldn’t care about any of this, really, beyond the necessity of getting his weapons back. And Norsen doesn’t even seem affected by any of it, judging by his expression - that superior, half-bored look that has a unique way of grating on Paz’s nerves. 

It’s late, and the streets are almost empty, as they make their way through the maze of closed shops and miserable-looking dwellings. Paz is trying to think about what he needs to do next, once he has his weapons back. Would it be worth going after Norsen again, he wonders? It might be more trouble than it’s worth, and there are other sources of beskar in the galaxy, of course. The Foundlings need their armour, that’s the important thing. 

It’s funny, though. He said to that little teenage soldier, on the base, that they were like a Clan, this annoying officer and those kids, and in a way, it’s true. Those academy kids are a bit like Foundlings, when you think about it like that. Then again, no Mandalorian, no matter how skilled, would attempt to take responsibility for that number of brat. There are only a dozen foundlings in the entire Covert, even if you count Djarin’s little green thing. And Norsen’s got a hundred. The man must be completely insane if he thinks he can keep them safe.

Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, the imperial stops dead in his tracks, interrupting Paz’s thoughts.

“Would you kindly wait here, please?” he says, not even bothering to look at Paz. “I won’t be a second.”

Then, without any more explanation, he disappears into a side alley, his hand trailing the wall lightly.

For a few minutes, Paz waits. Why not? Ther alley’s a dead end, and he can see Norsen’s heat signature through his scope, just a few steps away, unmoving. Then it starts to feel a little ridiculous, to be honest, to be - what, guarding some sort of barely-there space between two buildings for no reason ?-, and he follows Norsen, half expecting him to have disappeared somehow despite what his scope tells him, along with his promise of giving Paz back his guns.

But Norsen hasn’t disappeared. He’s standing back to the wall, half hunched up.

And he’s crying.

Well, not crying, he’s sobbing, really, the kind of ugly, bitter tears that rip through you like a knife, the kind of tears you cry when everything is hopeless. His face is buried in his hands, in a vague attempt to conceal himself, perhaps, but his shoulders are shaking, and the _sounds_ … 

The sounds he makes are heart-wrenching.

“So. I gather there’s some history there,” says Paz flatly.

Norsen makes a noise that could be a lot of things. A yes, maybe, or a general expression of disapproval towards Paz’s presence. It’s hard to tell.

He waits, but Norsen doesn’t move.

“You can’t stay here,” says Paz. “You’ll have to move, eventually. You know that?”

Well, it isn’t true. He could stay here all night, of course. And Paz shouldn’t care. But it feels like something heavy has settled onto his heart, something almost too physical to be an emotion, a sort of instinct. An instinct to protect. It’s his weakness, he knows that, but it’s hard to resist.

He walks up to Norsen, pushes his hands away from his face, raises his chin until his grey eyes are level with the eye-slits of Paz’s helmet.

“Look at you, princess,” says Paz, but his voice is soft. “You’re a mess.”

“I’m aware of that,” says Norsen in a strangled voice. “Can you go away, please?”

“I don’t think so.” Paz uses the finger he had under Norsen’s chin to tilt his head this way and that, surveying the way the lights of the city shine on the tears staining his cheeks. “You don’t look like you can take care of yourself, to be honest.” 

“Of course I can. Do you think I…”

“I think you don’t know what you need, sweetheart. But I do. Let me take care of you?”

Norsen shakes his head. “It’s not that I didn’t enjoy… whatever happened last time. But honestly, I’m not in the mood, and I don’t see how it would…”

“Listen. I can’t pretend I know what happened with you and that asshole. All I can say is, if you let me, I’ll make you feel better. I’m pretty sure of that.”

“Are you?” says Norsen, and it’s probably meant to sound doubtful, but instead, it sounds a little desperate. And maybe a little bit hopeful, at the same time. As though he’d like to believe what Paz says, but he can’t quite bring himself to. 

“Yes. I said I’d keep you safe, and I will. You just have to trust me.”

* * *

It being Corellia, and a fairly disrespectable part of Corellia at that, it takes roughly two minutes to find a place that rents rooms by the hour. The man at the door doesn’t even bat an eye at the sight of a heavily armoured Mandalorian with a slight, aristocratic looking man, eyes red from weeping. He probably sees stranger customers on a regular basis. 

Paz guides Norsen to their room. The blonde is sort of on autopilot, his usually sharp eyes unfocused and vague, his movements clumsy. He looks like he’s lost in the nothingness that lies behind sorrow, that white, empty space that feels oddly seductive at first, until you realise that the pain is still there, and that muffling yourself doesn’t stop you from screaming. 

Paz has been there. He’s seen other people there. It’s not a pretty sight. Sometimes people never really leave.

“There,” he says, when they’re in the room, the door safely shut behind them. “Now it’s just the two of us. Now tell me. Do you know what you need?”

“I don’t know, I... I just… I’ll be fine in a minute,” says Norsen, a little incoherently. “You don’t have to.. I mean, why would you, anyway, it doesn’t make any sense…”

“Shh. Answer the question,” says Paz patiently. 

“I don’t know. I don’t need anything. I… I just…” He looks at Paz, through Paz, really, he looks at nothing, and his eyes are wild. “I… I just need this to stop. This… this feeling.”

“Good,” says Paz. “That’s the right answer. I can try to make you stop thinking about it, sweetheart. I think I can probably stop you from thinking altogether for a little while, actually. Does that sound good?”

“I… Maybe. Maybe, I don’t know.”

“Listen, sweetheart. I think I knew someone a bit like you, a long time ago. It took me a while to figure out what he needed, but I like to think I got it down, in the end. Do you want to try?”

“I… What would I have to do?”

“Trust me. Obey me. Do what I say. Let me take over for a little while.”

Norsen’s pupils go a little wide, and a visible shudder goes down his spine. 

Yeah, Paz is pretty sure he’s right about this. This will work, if Norsen lets him.

“But what if…” says Norsen, a note of anxiety rising in his voice.

“Look, sweetheart, it’s simple. You want me to stop, just say ‘stop’, and I will. You have my word,” he says, and the words seem to persist for a while, heavy with meaning. “My word as a member of the Creed. “

Norsen breathes in sharply, and his eyes come into focus. “Then yes,” he says.

* * *

Later, Paz might ask himself whether this is a smart move. Norsen is not his husband, not his mate, he’s an outsider and an imperial, and this is not a game to be played with strangers for a moment of gratification. This is serious, and it’s certainly not reasonable for either of them to be engaging in something like that when they don’t know each other. 

But right now, as he watches Norsen stand in front of him, entirely naked, his hands trembling with the effort not to cover himself, to protect himself, Paz doesn’t think reason has anything to do with it.

“Goog boy,” he says, because Norsen has obeyed his first order: to undress. The slightest hint of pink rises to Norsen’s pale, tear-streaked cheeks at the praise. He’s made for this, it’s obvious. “Next, I want you to kneel, sweetheart. I want you to keep your hands behind your back. Hold onto your wrists for me. Can you do that?”

Norsen swallows, his throat working visibly. He moves, slowly. His movements have nothing of his usual grace, they are slightly jerky, awkward. As though he was fighting against some resistance, doing this. Struggling against himself, maybe.

Yet a second later, he’s kneeling, back straight. There’s that slight flush in his face, although his expression is blank. As though all this meant very little to him. As though he were merely humouring Paz. 

Paz smiles to himself. It’s a mask. He’s still trying to hide himself. It won’t last long.

“I’m going to blindfold you, now, sweetheart,” he says.

It’s as though a jolt goes through Norsen. “Really? I… I don’t know whether I feel comfortable…”

“Sorry, that’s non-negotiable. I’m going to blindfold you,” says Paz, slowly unwrapping the piece of cloth he keeps at his wrist. It won’t be the first time that thing has served as a blindfold in this kind of situation. “Unless you tell me to stop, that is.”

“I… Do… Do you really have to?” says Norsen, his breath rate rising a little. “I’d much rather…”

That’s not a stop. That is not even remotely close to a stop, so Paz doesn’t stop. He wraps the cloth against Norsen’s eyes, and for all his protests, the man doesn’t flinch or try to move away.

“There you are, sweetheart,” Paz tells him after knotting it tight. “Nice and snug.” 

He pulls back a little to survey his handiwork. The grey cloth looks lovely against Norsen’s skin, its matteness a nice contrast to the gold of his hair. Paz has always liked the look of a man in a blindfold, the sort of slackness that settles on their faces. It’s lucky, really, given the fact that this is the simplest way to circumvent one of the more demanding tenets of his faith.

But anyone would find Norsen beautiful like this, his lips parted a little in uncertainty, his high cheekbones painted red under the cloth, his chin defiantly up, the long lines of his neck, the bulge of his Adam’s apple, the lean muscles of his shoulders standing out slightly with the strain of keeping his hands behind his back.

He was undressed before, but now he’s _naked_.

“Now what?” Norsen’s voice is a little shaky. 

“Just stay there for me a little. Don’t move. I won’t be long.”

Norsen’s throat works as he swallows convulsively. He looks nervous, scared even.

Paz starts to undress. When he places the first piece of armour on the ground, there’s a sound, a metallic clang, and Norsen inhales, as though startled. His mouth opens a fraction, as though he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. He stays silent as Paz continues to remove his armour, his clothes, even though almost every sound Paz makes elicits a small, involuntary gesture, a minute shift in his expression.

He settles opposite Norsen. Like this, the size difference between them is even more perceptible than usual, and that sends a shiver of lust through Paz, makes his cock start to plump up, even though they haven’t even really started yet. He’s a man of simple, well defined tastes, after all. He likes women who are big and muscular, and men who are delicately built. He doesn’t like weakness, but there’s a part of him, a dark, almost cruel part that revels in seeing strength give way to vulnerability. 

And right now, Norsen does look vulnerable. He looks _breakable_.

It would be easy, Paz thinks, to break him. Very easy. There is so much fear and pain behind his cold exterior, and that fucking asshole Mikas was right about one thing, it’s easy to rile him up. It would be just as easy to crush him. 

He grabs Norsen by the hair, at the back of his head, just where the knot of the blindfold is, and the man hisses. Paz isn’t being particularly gentle, and it probably pulls painfully.

He could hurt Norsen, in ways much deeper than the physical, although it would be easy to do that as well, of course. It was so obvious in the way he looked at Mikas, in his voice, despite his attempts to hide it. Paz doesn’t know what happened, but it’s obvious Norsen is scarred by rejection, terrified of trusting in case he’s betrayed again. All it would take is one word, maybe.

But Norsen is trusting him and, besides, Paz has always been a sucker for blondes.

He pulls Norsen’s head back, and with no warning, presses his lips to Norsen’s in a fierce kiss.

The blonde’s lips go taut in surprise, at first, then he yields, and lets Paz in, lets himself be claimed. He tastes like tears, and Paz kisses the salt from his lips, his teeth scraping against the skin until it’s as much a bite as a kiss, and Norsen makes this little sound of protestation that turns into a little mewl of need, and Paz smiles against his mouth.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asks, resting his forehead against the other man’s. 

“I...This is so strange. I… don’t even know what you look like,” Norsen breathes.

“Well, I’m not as pretty as you, that’s for sure. More?”

Norsen nods, and leans forward, seeking Paz’s mouth again. Paz holds him back, firmy but not unkindly. 

“No, sweetheart. I’m in charge of this. You just stay there and take what I give you. You do nothing unless I tell you to. Is that clear?”

The imperial swallows. “Yes.”

“Good.” Paz kisses him again, slowly, possessively. He puts more of his body into it, this time, making the imperial feel him, feel the weight of him, feel how easy for him it is to envelop the smaller man in strong, hard flesh. No one would call Paz pretty, that’s for sure, but he’s impressively built, tall and broad. His wide darkly furred chest stands in sharp contrast to Norsen’s almost bony built, to his fair skin with its dusting of freckles, almost entirely hairless apart from the trail of darker hair that leads down from his navel. 

The imperial reacts to the contact of Paz’s body with a small gasp, as though surprised by the feeling of skin against skin, or perhaps it’s the way Paz cradles him so easily, one had still in his hair, the other at the small of his back, pressing him close. Paz pulls harder, forcing Norsen to arch his back, forcing him to bare his throat, and Paz can’t resist biting at the skin, just above the jugular where the imperial’s heartbeat is fluttering rapidly. 

He half-expects Norsen to pull back, even though he told him not to, because, well, it’s not exactly a gentle bite, but even though the imp lets out a small whimper, he doesn’t move. Paz lets go of his grip on the imperial’s hair, nuzzles against his skin. He can actually _feel_ some of the tension draining out of Norsen, his shoulders relaxing as he gets used to this, to letting himself be passive. 

Paz kisses the mark he left on that white skin. It looks like it might bruise, and he doesn’t mind in the slightest. “ _Good_ boy,” he whispers, and that elicits another whimper, closer to pleasure than pain, this time. “You’re being so very good for me. I knew you would.” He trails his mouth along Norsen’s jawbone, kisses his lax mouth again. “You have such a pretty mouth,” he says. “Such a pretty mouth. You have no idea what it does to me. I haven’t been able to think about anything else lately, the way you looked with your lips stretched around my cock. Have you been thinking about it too? Tell me, sweetheart, have you been touching yourself thinking about my cock in your mouth?”

Norsen blushes - it’s part of why Paz likes blondes, it’s so much fun to make them blush. “I…” he starts., “I don’t know, I…”

“Sure you know, sweetheart. Tell me. Do you want my cock in your mouth again, right now?”

“I…” Norsen licks his lips in an unconscious gesture. “I… Don’t know if…”

“If you want it, you have to say it, darling. Come on.”

There’s a pause, a moment of hesitation, an internal turmoil that’s plain on Norsen’s face, as clear as though his feelings were shining through his skin.

“Yes,” he breathes, finally, as though he’s tearing the word away from his throat, “Yes. Please.”

“Say it,” says Paz patiently.

“I… Paz, I want… I want to suck you, please,” Norsen says finally, the words rushing out, all jumbled together like that in itself is a release.

“Well done, baby.” Paz strokes the side of the imperial’s face and notes how he leans into it, cat-like. He hasn’t missed the way Norsen used his name, and that is… interesting. Not exactly what he was expecting, really. He would like to see this as more of a mutual stress-relief kind of situation, only a breath away from an anonymous encounter, but maybe he’s fooling himself. Because, well, the truth is he _has_ been thinking about Norsen, a little too much for it to be just about his pretty eyes and slim build.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he says. “I know you’d like that. I know you’d make it real good.” He lets his fingers trail down to that plush, eager mouth, sliding his first two fingers into that warm, silky heat, feels Norsen’s tongue curl around him hungrily. It feels as though his fingers are directly connected to his dick, the way it turns him on. “But that’s not what’s going to happen. You’re not sucking my cock, baby, _I’m_ going to fuck your mouth.”

Stars, the sound Norsen makes is sinful. 

“You’re just going to stay there, just like that,” Paz says, pushing his finger in deep, until he can feel Norsen start to choke a little bit, “and be good for me. Can you do that, sweetheart?”

The imperial makes that sound again, raw with need and arousal, and nods.

“Good boy.” Paz pulls away, and Norsen whimpers a little at the loss of contact.

Standing is a little more laborious than it should be, because Paz is heavy, and he’s not exactly young, anymore. His knees protest painfully, but it’s worth it.

Because from this angle, his little blonde imperial, kneeling blindfolded, his hands clasped behind his back so sweetly and his cock, just as pretty and pink as Paz imagined it, jutting from between his legs with a little spider silk thread of precome dripping from its tip, is utterly breathtaking.

 _His_ little imperial. The thought sort of takes him by surprise, as does the rush of heat that comes with it. 

He cradled the back of Norsen’s head with one hand, his fingers running through the silky blonde hair. “Ready, sweetheart?” he asks. “Open up.”

Norsen’s lips part, pink and plush, the darker shade of tongue sweet and inviting. Paz pushes in, watching those lips stretch, watching the way the delicate wings of Norsen’s nose widen a little with the strain of it, the sweet way he pushes forwards and lets his tongue curl around him for a second before he remembers Paz’s instructions and makes a visible effort to stay still, to let Paz _take_.

It’s beautiful, the way this proud, prickly little creature submits. It’s something to be treasured, and admired, and respected, and so Paz doesn’t go easy on him. He thrusts in and out, nice and deep, holding on to the back of Norsen’s head, and the imperial yields eagerly, occasionally making lovely little sounds when Paz goes a little too deep, something between choking and a moan of pleasure.

“Look at you, baby,” says Paz, unable to stop the praise from tumbling out of his mouth. “Look at how well you’re taking me. You’re made for this, aren’t you? Made to be on my knees in front of me, taking my cock. You want even more, don’t you? Look how hard you are, squirming like a cat in heat. Fuck, you’re beautiful, look at you, look at how good you are…”

It’s good, so good the feeling almost takes him by surprise, like he was some kind of fumbling teenager, and he has to make an effort to pull himself back in time, wrapping a hand tight around the base of his cock to stop himself from coming, his balls tightening painfully for a second.

For a second, he almost gives in anyway, because the thought of coming on Norsen’s face - the way he is now, flushed, panting, his lips slick with spit and precome - is a very attractive one. 

But he has other plans, he tells himself. Other plans worth waiting for.

“I’m going to fuck you,” he says. “Unless you tell me to stop right now. If you don’t want that, tell me now.”

The imperial says nothing, but his skin flushes again, red on white.

“Good. Then get on the bed,” Paz says. “You can use your hands, if you like.”

The imperial lets go of his own arms, and, fuck, he was holding on so hard he has marks on his wrists, and that brings to mind all kinds of ways Paz could mark his pretty skin, how lovely he would look with rope-burn and Paz’s handprints all over him, but once again, that’s not the plan. 

Norsen climbs onto the bed, a little clumsily, then just sits there expectantly.

“Get on your back.” Paz is deliberately staying away, for the moment, just watching as Norsen lowers himself onto his elbows, then flat on his back. One of his arms comes up protectively, to cover his face, over the blindfold.There’s a little tremor in his limbs at being exposed like this.

“Hands down, darling. Flat on your thighs. Good,” he says approvingly as the imperial obeys in those jerky, nervous movements. The muscles in his thigh twitch with tension, but he’s still hard with need. “Now, sweetheart, I want you to pull your legs up. I want your hands at the back of your knees, holding yourself open for me.”

“I can’t,” says the imperial, shaking his head. “I… I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can, darling. It’s easy.”

“I can’t… do something like that.” Norsen bites his lip, curling his head up a little into his shoulder, as though trying to hide. His fingers are digging into his thighs, white with tension.

“Of course you can. Look at you, how pretty you are for me. I wish you could see what just looking at you does to me, darling. Come on.”

Norsen takes a deep, shuddering breath, and slowly, his hands start moving.

“Look at you,” says Paz. His voice feels rough in his throat. “Look at how good you’re being. I know this is hard, darling, but if you could see yourself… My pretty imperial, all laid out for me just like I asked, giving me everything.”

“Please,” breathes Norsen. “Please.”

“Don’t worry, darling, I’m here.” Paz gets on the bed, between the imperial’s legs, and presses a kiss to the back of his thigh, making him twitch. Slowly, he licks at the tender skin, salty with perspiration, almost hairless there, at the top of his thighs. Then he bends down a little lower and slowly, very deliberately, licks at the pretty pink between his buttocks, laving it thoroughly. It tastes of sweat, of male, human and delicious, and he can’t seem to stop, getting in deeper and deeper until he’s fucking Norsen with his tongue, opening him up, and the imperial is making the sweetest sounds, half strangled moans that go straight to Paz’s dick. 

He doesn’t remember the last time he felt like this, the last time he wanted something like that so much. Since he’s lost his mates, he’s had sex, sure, a lot of it, because he likes it and has never felt the slightest bit guilty about it, but it hasn’t been like this. 

He loves fucking, and he’s good at it, and frankly it’s not hard for him to get laid. There are brothers and sisters in the covert who very gladly let them into their beds for a bit of fun if they feel like it, and a surprisingly large number of outsiders who are very into the armour and the way that Paz likes to take charge in bed. But this is different.

His hands tremble when he reaches for the lube and coats himself. There’s this breathless sense of urgency that tells him he’ll die if he doesn’t get inside that beautifully offered body immediately. IT hasn’t felt like that in a long, long time.

He watches the way Norsen’s head falls back, his mouth open as a gasp, as he breaches him slowly, watches how his throat works as he swallows a long moan at the way Paz is stretching him, watches his skin, ever responsive, as the blood rises to his face again. He watches his eyelashes flutter under the blindfold, barely perceptible, as he pushes in inexorably, mercilessly, slowly forcing the imperial’s body to yield to his girth. 

He watches, and the heat and tightness of Norsen’s body is almost an afterthought, delicious though it is, because what he wants is this expression on Norsen’s face, the slightly shocked slackness of his mouth, the panting breaths he takes as Paz thrusts again and again, slow and deep.

And then suddenly Norsen’s arms are around him, pulling him close, and his lips, blindly, are seeking Paz’s hungrily. Paz reaches down, taking Norsen’s straining cock in his hand, velvet hardness slick with the fluids leaking from its tip, and it takes barely anything, a squeeze more than a stroke, before Norsen comes, his body clenching wildly on Paz’s, wrenching a climax out of him that he wasn’t ready for and that shakes him to the very marrow of his being.

* * *

He holds on to Norsen for a while, waiting for him to catch his breath, then gently, carefully, cleans him up. The imperial feels boneless in his arms.

“Don’t move, baby,” he says. “I’ll turn the lights off and take off your blindfold, alright?” 

Norsen doesn’t answer, just curls in on himself a little more, his forehead resting heavily on Paz’s chest. His breathing is a brittle, shaking thing. Paz goes to get up, and the man’s hand lifts, grabbing his arm.

“Don’t go,” he breathes. 

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m coming back, sweetheart,” says Paz, and on instinct, he presses a kiss to the top of the imperial’s head. “Just trust me, alright?”

He feels rather than sees the imperial nod, and then the hand gripping him lets go, little by little, and Paz gets up. Norsen looks small and forlorn, alone on that bed. In the harsh light, in the cold clarity that come after sex, he doesn’t look so fairy-tale pretty anymore. He looks rawer, realler, the angles and bumps of his bones under his skin a little too visible, tired lines at the corner of his lips, hair damp with sweat and skin dappled in red marks that are the shadows of Paz’s fingers. He looks breakable rather than delicate, like this. 

Less pretty, maybe. More beautiful, somehow.

That warm, almost painful feeling grips Paz again. He turns off the light and moves back unerringly to the bed, guided by Norsen’s shuddering breaths, and wraps him in his arms, as close as he dares.With one hand, he unties the blindfold.

“Alright, sweetheart?” he says.

“Yes.” The imperial nuzzles against his chest. His cheeks are wet. “Thank you. That was…”

“Do you feel any better?”

“I feel... drained.”

“Good. That’s good.” Paz strokes his back soothingly. “Sleep a little, if you want?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t like sleeping very much. I don’t sleep well.”

“Then just stay here. Do you want to talk?”

“About what?”

“That guy. Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It’s… a long story.”

“I’ve got time. I’m supposed to be acting as a bodyguard for this imperial, but I don’t think he’s in any kind of danger, right now.”

“No, I don’t think I am, actually. It’s a nice change.” says Norsen, and he tilts his head to press a chaste, closed-mouth kiss to Paz’s lips. It feels surprisingly good, for such a small gesture. “I don’t think I’ve felt safe in a long time. Lie down?”

Paz settles on his back on the bed, and the imperial drapes himself over him, one thigh over Paz’s leg, his head on his chest, fingers playing idly with the hair on Paz’s chest..

“I don’t know where to start. I… I don’t even know if it was such a big deal, really, or if it's just me making a big deal of it all. Anyway. As you might have guessed, I was in love with him, once. I think that must be painfully obvious, isn’t it?” He chuckles a little bitterly. “The thing is, saying that doesn’t even cover it. It sounds… innocuous. We were together for a while fifteen years ago, we split up. It sounds like someone else’s story, when you say it like that. But I was young, and very stupid, and to me, he was everything. I couldn’t believe he wanted me. I couldn't believe anyone would want me, in fact. It started when I was at the Academy, and at the time… I felt out of place Awkward. Well, I suppose I was, really. All the other officer candidates came from excellent backgrounds, they had this kind of self-possession I couldn’t even begin to emulate, and I… I just wanted to fit in, and there was Ryss, the one everyone admired, telling me he wanted me, that he cared about me.

“The funny thing is I didn’t really realise how hopeless it was, even at the time. Of course no one cared about me. I had no power. To them, I was just this irritating presence, this frigid pretty lower-class boy who’d always take the highest marks and refused to fawn after them. They thought I was arrogant. They wanted to… I don’t know, teach me my place, I suppose. I just wanted them to look at me like a person.”

Paz says nothing. There’s not a lot to say to someone when they’re talking like that, like every word is being torn away from them.

“I found out later that there was a sort of standing bet between the upper-class students as to who would get me in bed first. It was a sort of running joke. Ryss who told me about it. Of course, he said he’d never been a part of that. That he just wanted me, that he didn’t need anything else, that he didn’t do it for his friends’ approval. Because he thought I was special. And I believed him, because it was so nice to think someone might actually want me.”

Norsen sighs. “Of course it was all lies. It always is, with him. He’d been the one to set up that bet, in fact. But when I learned about that little detail, it was too late. I didn’t care. I thought I was in love. I would have forgiven anything from him. I loved his cruelty, his ruthlessness, his selfishness, because they were parts of him and nothing else mattered to me anymore. I lied and cheated for him, just so he could stay with me. He was a terrible student, you see. Clever, but he never did any work. He didn’t see the point. But he didn’t have to, because I would just slice my way into the systems and take exams for him, fly simulator courses for him, anything to keep him with me.”

Paz strokes his hair lightly, just playing with the silky strands, still a little wet with sweat. “Yeah. Sorry to have to tell you, sweetheart, but that guy sounds like a real dick to me.“

Norsen sighs. “Yes. Well. In retrospect, yes, it’s hard to find any redeeming qualities. But at the time, I would have walked through fire for him. At least, I thought so. In the end, I didn’t.”

“Yeah. Can’t say I blame you. Tarkin’s the fucking asshole who did Alderaan, isn’t he?”

“Was. He’s dead, now. He was… let’s say, interested in my career. Very anxious to help a young, brilliant officer like me. I was actually flattered, for a while. When I told Ryss that, he just laughed. He said there could only be one reason Tarkin was interested in me. It came as a bit of a shock to me, to be honest, but to him, it wasn’t a big deal. It was just the kind of things people did to get ahead. He thought it was a great opportunity. But I couldn’t see it like that. I’d never slept with anyone but him, and I didn’t want to take this thing that felt special, that was ours, and turn it into something sordid and tawdry. Something small. I thought he’d understand, but…” 

Paz feels him shake his head. “He was angry. It was the first time that I’d refused to do something he asked me to do, and thought he could convince me, but I… Just wouldn’t. He didn’t like that. Anyway,” he sighs, “I’m not going to subject you to all the details of that sordid affair. In the end, he went to our commanding officer with proof that I’d tempered with his grades at the Academy. It didn’t show, of course, that what I’d been doing was raising them. It looked like I’d been trying to sabotage his career. It was a huge scandal.” That bitter chuckle again. “Well, it would have been, except that they decided it would reflect badly on the Academy, and it would be better to keep it quiet. But it was made very clear to me that I would never hold a command. That it would be a very good idea to move to some less prestigious branch of the navy. I became an engineer, and he… just kept rising through the ranks. Not that I ever saw him after that. Anyway. There you have it, the whole mess of it.” He sighs. “I’m sorry I let it get to me. I’m sorry you had to see that embarrassing display.”

Paz kisses him. He can’t see anything in the total darkness, but the kiss lands somewhere on Norsen’s temple. “I’ve seen worse.”

“I don’t know whether that’s very reassuring. All this probably sounds very stupid to you. Silly, petty squabbling. You’ve… lost people, you said.”

Paz shrugs. “Pain is pain. We all have our ways of coping.”

“I don’t feel like having a breakdown in the middle of a street can truly be called coping.”

“Well… It worked, didn’t it? You’re feeling better now.”

“Because you...” He stops. “Why did you do that, anyway?”

“It’s what I do.”

“Oh, really? You pick up people who are weeping in the street to give them the fuck of a lifetime?”

Paz grins despite himself. “Really? Of a lifetime?”

“Well. It felt a bit like it, but then again, it has been a while. Most of the people I interact with on a daily basis are half my age.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be great. Speaking of the kids, what are you going to do about them?”

“I don’t know. I’m running out of options. I don’t trust Ryss, but I have no one else to turn to. I don’t like that I need his help. It’s… very unpleasant. Intolerable, in fact. But I have no other choice.”

“You’ll find a way. You’re clever. He’s a bastard, but you have a lot more brains than him.”

“He’s a lot more powerful than I am. He has allies.”

“You have allies. You have scary eight year old girls. You have teenage stormtroopers who get shot for you. And if everything fails, you can always bring down a building on top of someone. That works.”

“True.” Norsen nuzzles closer and yawns. “Actually, I think I might sleep a little, if you don’t mind?”

“Go right ahead, sweetheart.”

“You _could_ use my name, you know,” he yawns again.

“What, Norsen? I’m not calling you that in bed.”

“My first name. Kel.”

“That’s what that asshole called you, though.”

“Well, it _is_ my name.”

“Okay. Go to sleep then. _Kel_.”

The imperial - Kel - just hums vaguely in response. Paz has his hand on his shoulder, and he can feel him slowly fall into sleep, his body a warm, dead weight, his breath becoming slow and deep.

He’s right, his fierce little imperial. He needs allies, and it’s clear he’s not making a lot of them, with his intransigence and his principles. Perhaps, though, he has one more than he thinks. 

Perhaps he has Paz.

**Author's Note:**

> uminoarawashi at tumblr.com if you want to chat. I don’t post anything specific, but I’m very open to fic recs or random fandom related musings!
> 
> I also love chatting randomly in the comments, so if you feel like leaving one, don’t hesitate!!


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